Raising slogans for dignified wages and work, thousands of ASHA workers took to the streets of Patna on 12 August. The massive protest, organised under the banner of Bihar Rajya ASHA Karyakarta Sangh (Gope) and affiliated to AICCTU, demanded immediate steps to increase the honorarium in line with the August 2023 agreement. The 31-day indefinite strike in 2023 by around one lakh ASHA workers and ASHA facilitators across Bihar had compelled the government to agree to provide payment as “honorarium” instead of “reward” (paritoshik).

Comrade Shashi Yadav, CPIML MLC and leader of the All India Scheme Workers Federation, said that the recent increase in payment uses the derogatory term paritoshik, which devalues the vital work carried out by ASHA workers.

She further said that ASHAs, as frontline health workers and the backbone of the country’s rural health and vast immunisation programmes, have played a crucial role in ensuring proper access to healthcare and in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet in Bihar and across the country, they have been forced to work for meagre pay, with many instances of ASHAs walking several kilometres on inhospitable rural roads to meet their targets.