ESMA invoked in Haryana

ROHTAK, May 27: The Haryana government has imposed the Essential Services Maintenance Act ESMA 1974, prohibiting strike by the nursing staff in the government hospitals and health institutions in the state for a period of six months.

A notice has been served on the striking nurses under ESMA that if they fail to resume duty by 7 a.m. on May 29, panel action under the Haryana Civil Services Punishment and Appeal Rules 1997 will be taken. The order issued by the state Health Department yesterday said that the decision to impose ESMA had been taken keeping in view the strike by nursing staff in the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, and the partial strike by the nursing staff in other hospitals under the Director General, Health Services, of the state.

Meanwhile, the Nursing Staff Association has given a call for mass leave and for holding a rally at the HUDA complex on May 30, according to Jasbir Kaur, president of the association. The nurses of Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma PGIMS have been on strike since May 21 in support of their demands for pay hike and allowances. According to a spokesperson, nearly 150 nursing students have been rusticated, but the director of institute D. S. Dubey said that 50 second year and 47 third year students had been suspended on disciplinary grounds.