ISLAMABAD: Tired of government’s foot dragging on implementing its earlier order to regularise the Lady Health Workers (LHW), the Supreme Court on Tuesday issued show- cause notices under contempt charges against the chief secretaries of the four provinces and asked them to come up with justification for defying the court directives.

Bushra Arain, a Lady Health Worker (LHW), had petitioned the Supreme Court in 2011 for initiating contempt proceedings against the governments for not implementing September 22, 2010 order of the apex court to frame service structure for LHWs - a structure that should also ensure job security and protection.

Over 100,000 LHWs, despite having worked for 17 to 18 years, were without any job security and their service was sometimes terminated by the provinces. Neither any offer letter has been issued to LHWs by the respective governments nor has any system of payment of monthly remuneration has been devised.

The LHWs have been demanding regularisation of their service for over three years and held a number of demonstrations in Islamabad.

Introduced by late Benazir Bhutto, the LHWs were appointed under the National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health in 1994 but their service was never regularised. Earlier the wages of LHW were raised to Rs7,000 from Rs3,200 on a November 4, 2010 order of the court.

On Feb 19, 2013, the Supreme Court had given a deadline of Feb 25 to the governments to issue notification for regularising LHWs but despite repeated directions the provincial governments have not implemented the orders.

On Tuesday a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja expressed dismay over the lack of implementation of the order despite the fact that earlier the law departments of the respective governments, including the federal government, had submitted affidavits for regularising the LHWs.

Additional Advocate General Sindh, Shafi Chandio, assured the bench that the offer letters to the LHWs in Sindh would be issued within a week. Similarly, Additional Advocate General Punjab, Razzaq A. Mirza, informed the court that LHWs in the province would be regularised within a month.

But not amused by the assurance the court decided to issue show- cause notices to the chief secretaries of the four provinces and ordered them to come up on Sept 29 with detailed justification about the delay.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2014