The Tamil Nadu government on Monday (December 22, 2025) announced that it will consider the demands of the striking nurses and take steps to regularize 723 of them on the basis of seniority by Pongal (mid-January) 2026.
State Health Minister M.A. Subramanian said that also, a major demand of providing them maternity leave with pay will also be considered positively. Today is the fifth day of the strike of government nurses appointed on consolidated salary.
After holding talks with representatives of nurses unions, Subramanian told reporters here, ‘Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has directed to consider the appeal of maternity leave with salary and other demands included in his ten-point charter. He assured that the government will take immediate steps to solve their problems.
Nurses across the state have been on strike since December 18 and more than 500 nurses were arrested in Chennai on the third day of the agitation. Despite the biting cold, some nurses even brought their children to the protest to highlight their plight that their services are not getting proper recognition.
Subramanian said that during the tenure of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, nurses were recruited through the Tamil Nadu Medical Recruitment Board at a consolidated salary of Rs 14,000. He claimed that after DMK came to power (in 2021), his salary was revised to Rs 18,000 per month.
He said, ‘The government has regularized the services of 3,614 nurses working on contract and in addition, 1,200 nurses have been deployed in 11 government medical college hospitals. The process of issuing orders to regularize the services of 169 nurses is going on.
The minister claimed that the nurses were initially appointed on contract with the condition that their services would be regularized as and when vacancies arise. He said, ‘Currently more than 8,000 nurses are on strike.’
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