Coronavirus India | BMC hasn’t paid 144 Mumbai nurses on COVID-19 duty since May

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has not paid the salaries of as many as 144 nurses who are presently on COVID-19 duty across coronavirus wards in Mumbai.

The 144 young nurses on coronavirus duty were supposed to get paid a daily allowance of Rs 300 for working in the COVID-19 wards along with their salaries. All BMC staff on COVID-19 duty are supposed to get the allowance, but these nurses have claimed they have not been paid at all since they were hired in May.

These newly hired nurses on coronavirus duty have been working for nearly eight hours daily. Most of them are aged between 26 and 28 years and have been put up at hostels or BMC accommodations, reported the Mumbai Mirror.

An India Today report states that they have already written to the Mumbai civic body to seek clarity on the nature of their employment (whether it is permanent or contractual) and also their dues.

The Municipal Mazdoor Union has informed that these nurses have not received their appointment letters from the BMC yet. They had applied for jobs in 2018 and got a call from BMC in May 2020 asking them to submit their personal documents for verification. The civic body has reportedly not been able to formalise their appointment because their caste documents need to be verified as there are caste-based reservations in the jobs.

Pradeep Narkar, Secretary, Municipal Mazdoor Union, said: “The nurses left their jobs at a private hospital and joined the BMC centres hoping for a permanent job. For three months they were at different COVID-19 Care Centres. It is not their fault that BMC has not been able to verify their documents. We have met and discussed the issue with the city Mayor Kishori Pednekar and she has promised us that she will look into the matter.”