Kohima, Apr 11 (IANS): The Nagaland government has urged the doctors to withdraw their agitation scheduled to begin from Monday in support of their long pending demand to increase the retirement age.

Demanding the increase of age of superannuation for doctors to 65 for clinical and 62 for administrative, the Nagaland In-Service Doctors' Association (NIDA) earlier announced to start mass casual leave from Monday to Wednesday, followed by an indefinite cessation of works.

A Nagaland health department official on Sunday said that Chief Secretary J. Alam along with senior officials held a meeting with representatives of NIDA and explained that the state cabinet in its last meeting on April 7 had deferred the matter for further consultation and that the matter was not closed, but still under consideration.

According to an official statement said that the cabinet sub-committee headed by the Deputy Chief Minister Yanthungo Patton consulted the matter with the concerned stakeholders.

"It was also impressed upon NIDA that Nagaland, like the rest of the country, was battling the Covid pandemic for over one year while the second wave was staring at us.

The Chief Secretary also pointed out that the need to intensify the vaccination drive, testing, tracking and treatment of Covid cases without any disruption.

Since the Disaster Management Act, 2005 was still in force and the health services being an essential service under the Nagaland Essential Services (Maintenance Act, 1978) such disruptive action will be illegal," the statement said.

The Chief Secretary said that the disruption in health services would be extremely detrimental for the general public at this point of time.