ASHAs are a worried lot as payment of incentives is delayed

The 30,000 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in Karnataka have constantly been made big promises of increased incentives and mobile phones.

But, the reality is that they are yet to get mobile phones and even the incentives have not been coming in regularly.

While the ASHAs have not been getting performance-based incentives from the Centre, the matching grants promised by the State have also been delayed. Upset over this, the health activists had stalled work in April.

Following this, a major chunk of the matching grants paid by the State had been released in the first week of May.

However, the performance-based incentives from the Centre are yet to come. “We have not got this payment for the last six to eight months. Overall, we are supposed to get nearly Rs. 20 crore,” said D. Nagalakshmi, general secretary of the Karnataka State Samyukta ASHA Workers’ Association.

Sources said the delay in payment was because of the slash in the Union health budget by 20 per cent.

Denying that the slash had delayed payments, ASHA research officer Raj Kumar said there was an initial delay because the new government (at the Centre) had to study and modify the scheme. He alleged that the activists were submitting “false claims” for payments of services they would not even have performed.

Citing an example, he said, “Overall in 2014-2015, the ASHAs submitted a claim for payments of 6 lakh deliveries whereas they have actually assisted 3.6 lakh deliveries,” he said.

Mr. Raj Kumar said the ASHAs’ claim for pending payment is for the remaining 2.4 lakh deliveries, which happened in urban areas.

On the delay in payment of matching grants, the officer said, “When this was announced in 2013, the annual incentives paid by the Centre were Rs. 25 crore and this was paid in the first year. However, the Centre increased the incentives to Rs. 87 crore in 2014 and there was a delay in getting the Finance Department’s approval for the increased amount.”

Refuting the charges of false claims, Ms. Nagalakshmi said there could be one or two stray cases.