Kerala ASHA workers to end strike in front of Secretariat

Kerala’s Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), who have been striking for the last 265 days demanding enhanced remuneration and retirement benefits, on Friday (October 31, 2025) decided to end their day-and-night strike in front of the Secretariat.

ASHA workers will end their strike in front of the Secretariat on Saturday, November 1, Kerala’s Formation Day, with a rally, pledging to continue their struggle to secure daily minimum wages as well as retirement benefits. The rally will be inaugurated by Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan at 11 a.m.

The frontline women health workers decided to end their strike on the streets after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, among a slew of populist announcements made the other day, said the monthly honorarium of ASHAs would be enhanced by ₹1,000.

Though the main demands of Kerala ASHA Health Workers’ Association (KAHWA), which has been leading the strike calling for a hike in the honorarium paid by the State to ₹21,000 and a lump sum retirement benefit of ₹5 lakh, are yet to be met, the strike in its current form is being ended as the ASHAs have managed to secure several of their other demands, said KAHWA leaders.

“We will continue our agitation to secure the State’s accepted daily minimum wages of ₹700/day for ASHAs as well as our main demand, that of retirement benefits for ASHAs. We are happy that sitting in front of the Secretariat, we could make the voices of ASHAs heard in both Houses of the Parliament and that we could become the voice and aspiration for the struggling ASHAs across the country,” said M.A. Bindu, general secretary of KAHWA.

Though the women are ending their agitation in front of the Secretariat, ASHAs will take their protest to the districts. ASHAs have decided to reach out to every ward during the upcoming local body elections, urging people to “deliver a verdict against those who insulted the ASHAs’ struggle and belittled their demands.”

Ms. Bindu claimed that through their protracted struggle, they could draw the attention of the entire country to the life, work and struggles of ASHAs.

She said that it was after the ASHAs began their strike that the government was forced to pay their pending salary arrears and to ensure that their honorarium payments were made promptly. The government also removed all conditions that had been linked to the payment of honorarium as well as the clause fixing 62 years as the retirement age for ASHAs, she pointed out.