Damauli, December 8

Employees at District Health Office, Tanahun, have not received their salary for the past two months. Confusion over whether DHO will be operated under central or provincial government has also stalled the integration of health staffers.

Acting Chief Shankar Babu Adhikari at the DHO said the staffers had not received their salary for the past two months. The central government had issued a directive stating that DHO would cease to exist after the beginning of the new fiscal. However, it had also issued a second directive stating that the DHOs would remain under the control of the provincial government till the end of first quarter.

Adhikari said the DHO had been running under the provincial government after the second directive was issued. DHO staffers say that they could not spend the budget allocated by the federal government with the implementation of federal set-up and the province government did not have the authority to provide salary to DHO staffers. There are around two dozen staffers at the DHO.

Health Office Kaski Gandaki Province Public Health Administrator Rajendra Prasad Ghimire said staffers from health offices of Kaski, Tanahun and Syangja had not received remuneration.

Budget crunch has halted day-to-day activities at the DHO. Ghimire said he had sent the details of all expenditures of the first quarter to the Department of Health.

It has been learnt that the central government has written to chief ministers to operate health offices in all 77 districts.

Meanwhile, staffers under Damauli Hospital Development Committee complained that they had not received their salary for the past five months. The committee, however, said that it was yet to decide whether or not to retain employees hired on contract basis before releasing their salary.