Gurgaon: More than 650 Asha workers did not join duty on Friday and held a demonstration outside the chief medical officer’s office to protest against the mandatory installation of a mobile application, as directed by the National Health Mission (NHM).
The agitators said the smartphones given to them by the health department to digitise their daily work and monitor their targets should be taken back.
The demonstration is part of a statewide agitation planned by the Asha union against the Mobile Device Management (MDM) 360 shield app.
“We are clear about not downloading the MDM app on the smartphones given to us by the health department.
They cannot take away our right to privacy.
The app will allow officials to delete and add applications on our phones,” said Meera Devi, district head, Asha Workers’ Union.
The app was recently launched by the state government with an aim to allow officials at the district and headquarters to directly manage devices of Asha workers.
It aims to track daily work and know how a person uses the handset.
The app also allows officials in the health department to add, delete or update information on the phones.
“This is to bring more accountability and to see how Asha workers use the 1GB internet data pack that we give them on a daily basis.
It is for official purposes.
Asha workers are being misled into believing that the app is meant to target them,” said NHM’s state coordinator, Chand Singh Madaan.
The protesters, however, said they will not join work unless the mandatory provision of downloading the application is done away with.
They also demanded that the compensation promised to them for door-to-door Covid screening be given at the earliest.
“It is not acceptable to us that the officials will be able to keep track of daily movement and whereabouts of women and they will have remote access to their phones.
Are they doing the same thing for senior officials who hardly go to the field?” asked Surekha, general secretary of Asha Workers Union, Haryana.
The NHM has sought three day’s time to discuss the matter.