Indian Railways Health Service Association (IRHSA) has demanded the Centre regarding restoring its conveyance allowances along with other benefits that have been reduced randomly.

The Association wrote a letter to the Union Finance Secretary stating that the entire cadre of Central Government Doctors (CHS) which also includes the IRHS, are working diligently and are also risking their lives to treat patients during the coronavirus pandemic. The reduction in their conveyance allowance and other benefits was discouraging.

For doctors, the Dearness Allowance (DA) indexed Conveyance Allowance is based on a total number of emergent domiciliary visits, emergency or recurrent hospital visits apart from their duty hours and on-duty official movements in their duty hours within the jurisdiction by their personal vehicle. The other department employees get a fixed Conveyance Allowance based on the distance covered on duty that includes out of jurisdiction by their own vehicle.

The Finance Ministry has mixed the two different entities of Conveyance Allowance to doctors and other department employees. Due to which the Conveyance Allowance for doctors is reduced to less than 50% of the last drawn sum of Rs 7425.

The memorandum the copy also sent to the Prime Minister Office, Finance Minister, and the Railway Board states that it is unfortunate that the central government doctors, working hard and are so-called corona warriors and front runners against the battle of COVID-19 pandemic, has to face significant salary deduction from 15,000/- (@ level 10) to 30000/- (@ level 14).

The Association has demanded to increase Non-Practicing Allowance (NPA) to 40% while requesting the government to restore all their benefits, The Association has also highlighted that their non-practicing allowance was decreased to 20% from the pre-existing 25%. NPA is a part of basic salary and it has affected the pensions of doctors too.

The association made a plea to the government to reimburse doctors for loss of their salary due to the freezing of DA at 3% in January and July as they were continuously at work during the entire lockdown period.

Source: Deccan Herald