Chennai, Mar 1 (IANS): Government doctors in Tamil Nadu will sit on a token protest fast on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The protest is for a number of demands including proper relief for the families of government doctors who died of Covid-19. They are also demanding pay band 4 at 12 years of service.

The doctors said that if the government does not respond to their demands they will intensify the agitation.

The government doctors had staged a dharna on October 20 in Madurai and after an assurance from health minister Ma Subramanian that he will take up the issue with the Chief Minister, they did not intensify their agitation. The doctors again held a dharna on January 19 when nothing happened after assurances from the health minister.

The Legal Coordination Committee of government doctors which is spearheading the agitation said that the state government was doing nothing as far as the pay and other benefits of doctors are concerned. Dr Perumal Pillai, president of the LCC, told IANS that, "We are only demanding that the government give decent pay to the lowest-paid government doctors at par with the doctors of the neighbouring states."

He said that the previous government had promised in writing that the demands of the doctors would be met but nothing had happened.

The doctors said that the wife of Dr Vivekanandan, who passed away due to Covid-19 related illness, has not been given a government job on compassionate grounds. The LCC had met the health minister and officials along with the family of the deceased doctor but nothing came out of it.

The doctors are on the warpath after successive governments ignored their demands, Dr Pillai said.