Holding flags and placards, they took out a procession raising slogans demanding their recognition as workers, payment of minimum wages, dignity and better service conditions.
Addressing their meeting, senior CITU leader and Regional Secretary of CPI(M) Sham Prasad Kesar said ASHA workers have to collect information about the births and deaths in their villages which takes at least 5 to 7 hours of daily work.
"Still the government considers them as part time workers or voluntary health activists," he said, demanding that they should be regularised as health workers and paid the statutory minimum wages.