Demanding regularisation of their service and payment of pending salary, over 100 retrenched Covid warriors sat on a day-long dharna near the district headquarters in Dhanbad on Tuesday. The participants, among the 900 hired for sample testing, Covid screening and vaccination in March 2020, were abruptly retrenched on March 31 this year.

The protestors, who shouted slogans against the state government and district administration, accused the authorities of non-payment of more than one month's salary as part of incentive as promised during the pandemic for service to humanity.

Talking to The Telegraph Online, Om Kumar Bhagat, one of the health workers at the microbiology laboratory of Sahid Nirmal Mahto Memorial Medical College and Hospital, said, "We worked day and night during the Covid pandemic without taking leaves, saving lives of the common people. We were promised all kinds of benefits and incentives besides the regularisation of jobs, but have been retrenched without payment of salaries from November 2021 to March 2022.”

Throwing light on the crunch he is faced with, Bhagat said, "How will we survive without salaries as we joined the job in hope of regularization of job in the government sector and have also left job offers in the private sector which came in between."

Echoing Bhagat's sentiments, Rajesh Kumar, another health worker at the Covid treatment centre of PG block of Sahid Nirmal Mahto Memorial Medical College and Hospital, said, “While joining, we weren't aware that we will be terminated abruptly. But after two years of regular service, during which we risked our lives to serve Covid patients, we have been removed from service.”

“I was planning to admit my three-year-old daughter in school this year. But now the future of my family lies in the dark,” said Kumar.

He added that the issue has been raised before Dhanbad MLA Raj Sinha, Sub-divisional officer Prem Tiwari and Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Singh, but all requests have fallen on deaf ears.

Md Hasnain, associated with the Sahid Nirmal Mahto Memorial Medical College and Hospital said, “We risked our lives to serve people at a time when even the permanent employees were hesitating to work due to fear of Covid. Now we have been thrown out of the job, abruptly putting us on the brink of starvation."