108 ambulance services staff for fresh stir

VIJAYAWADA/GUNTUR: The 108 services employees are planning to launch another indefinite strike again alleging that the GVK EMRI authorities and the state government have reneged on their promises made during the employees’ month-long protest just one and half months ago.The 108 Employees Association leaders said that though the authorities had promised to hike the salary of the staff by 6 per cent, none has got the hiked salary yet. The 108 employees association had launched a strike on September 12, which was called off on October 2 after the authorities had promised to address the long-pending demands of the employees.Speaking to Express, state employees association president Ch Varaprasad said that they were planning to launch a strike as the GVK EMRI had failed to fulfil many promises it made at the time of strike.He further said that they would organise a press conference on November 20 to brief the media over the details of the strike. He demanded the state government take over the services from GVK EMRI. Since it is a fully-funded scheme of the state government, there is no need of a middle man, he said.The 108 ambulances are unable to render services promptly as the GVK EMRI is running only 300 vehicles as against 802 vehicles available, they say.Commenting over the poor service offered by the 108 ambulances in the state, the employees association leaders said that the services were the worst hit in the state as the government was not releasing the pending arrears to the GVK EMRI.Even, there are no sufficient funds to fill up the fuel tanks of the vehicles that resulted in abandonment of services, they said. They said that in Guntur district as only 32 vehicles were in operation. Only 20 ambulance services out of 64 were in operation in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy.