The ‘108’ ambulance workers union has approached the Madras High Court Bench here challenging performance-based appraisal system introduced by their employer GVK-Emergency Medical Research Institute for drivers, Emergency Medical Technicians and call centre employees.
When the writ petition filed by the State General Secretary of the union, M. Senthil Kumar, came up before Justice K. Ravichandra Baabu on Friday, he ordered notice to the Health and Family Welfare Secretary, Project Director of Tamil Nadu Health System and GVK-EMRI returnable by two weeks.
The judge also wondered how ambulance drivers could be forced to show fuel efficiency of more than 11 kilometres in order to be eligible for full annual increment in salary when the nature of the job requires them to drive the vehicles very fast which would naturally lead to higher fuel consumption.
Replying to this, a government counsel said that the State had no role to play on the issue since the drivers were private employees. However, the petitioner’s counsel, M. Saravanakumar, claimed that the salaries of the staff working for GVK-EMRI were paid through funds allotted by the State government.
Stating that the government had entered into an agreement with the private company only to avoid claims for public employment, the counsel contended that it was the State that disbursed funds required for staff salary, vehicle maintenance and purchase of life-saving equipment to the private company.
“When the salaries for the staff are disbursed with State funds received in four quarters every year, it is unreasonable on the part of the private company to introduce a performance appraisal system and lay down unreasonable and unachievable targets to grant salary increments,” the counsel said.
