A day after a scuffle with police personnel in Kolkata, ASHA workers demonstrated in various parts of West Bengal on Thursday to press for a number of demands, including a hike in the minimum monthly honorarium.

The agitating ASHA workers demonstrated in districts such as Paschim Bardhaman, Nadia and Bankura to protest the alleged "indifferent, inhuman” approach of the state government towards their demands and threatened to intensify the movement next week.

Nearly 1,000 ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activists) blocked key roads for several hours in Esplanade in central Kolkata and the IT hub of Sector Five in Salt Lake, when they were stopped en route to ‘Swasthya Bhavan’, the health department headquarters, resulting in a scuffle with women police personnel on Wednesday.

However, no senior health department official turned up to discuss their demands as sought by the agitators under the banner of the West Bengal ASHA Workers' Union and the Municipal Health Workers' Contractual Union. They were being supported by the SUCI (Communist).

On Thursday, the ASHA workers demonstrated before health department offices at Durgapur in Paschim Bardhaman, Bethuadahari Nadia and in Bankura district headquarters town, as police personnel had a trying time to pacify the slogan-shouting casual health workers employed by the state.

"We get around Rs 5,500 a month for working 15-16 hours every day. How are we supposed to manage?" said Chandana Barik, an ASHA worker in Bankura.

Their nine-point charter of demands includes a monthly salary of Rs 15,000, six months of paid maternity leave, compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the family of a deceased ASHA worker, formal recognition as health workers, fixed working hours, and a weekly day off.

The health workers claimed they had not been paid for months and were receiving meagre amounts despite being deployed for a range of medical emergencies and welfare programmes.

The ASHA workers have been on a 'cease-work' since December 23.

The state committee of the All India Democratic Youth Organisation (AIDYO), the youth wing of SUCI(C), condemned the alleged police harassment of ASHA workers during their march to the state health department headquarters on Wednesday.

In a press statement, AIDYO West Bengal state secretary Malay Pal said ASHA workers across the state have been carrying out a "completely justified" health movement for the past one month.

"ASHA workers on their way to participate in the protest were subjected to intimidation and obstruction (on Wednesday). The organisation alleged that workers were threatened at their homes, harassed at railway stations, forced to get down from trains and intimidated by police and Trinamool Congress-backed miscreants,” the statement said.

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