‘108’ staff demand better wages

 Hyderabad: The employees of 108 ambulance services are an unhappy lot as their demands for better wages and improved working conditions are still not met. Union leader of Telangana State 108 employees union, P Ashok said, “We are not happy with the remuneration. For the past 13 years, the employees are getting the same salary without any hike.
 
The workmen have also appealed to the high court. They want the government to do justice by rising salaries to complement with today’s inflation.” 

The demands include the implementation of GO MS 14 for pay scale and other welfare measures. Ravi, an employee said, “We want eight-hour shifts against the current 12-hour ones.”
 
It may be noted that in August last, a section of the employees went on a strike. There are 310 ambulances in Telangana and around 30 in the twin cities, which respond to 100-200 emergency calls per day. 
108 is a free telecommunication service for the ambulance transport facility which is available 24/7. This transport service is committed to provide high-quality emergency medical service in all parts of India and also in the twin cities. This service is a public-private partnership between the State government and GVK EMRI. This is a contracting and outsourcing services.

This medical transport is packed with the necessary equipment with an advanced life support system and having highly trained personnel. In this journey of their transport service they get full fledge support from the traffic police but the paramedical staff in the hospitals where they take the patient, somehow, they don’t give them their due importance as they treat them as an outsider. 

Earlier, there were 1,000 employees, all were shunted out and around 600 employees were re-employed.