Contract nurses and technicians put on black badges today. The duty boycott is still dated 8 September.

Black badges go on today. The duty boycott does not.

On Monday, 24 August 2026, contract and para-medical staff under Andhra Pradesh’s Medical and Health establishment enter the first black-badge window of a graded agitation announced by the Andhra Pradesh Medical and Health Contract Employees Joint Action Committee. The calendar was reported from Visakhapatnam. It was unused on the earlier ship. It remains true this morning. Black badges on duty run from 24 to 27 August 2026. That is live today. It stays tomorrow. This desk will not print the 8 September duty boycott as if it had already begun.

G. Koteswara Rao, JAC chairman and a staff nurse at King George Hospital, Visakhapatnam, said the government had not addressed the demands and had not even recognised that the problems existed, even after a large protest in Vijayawada on 17 June. He appealed to Health Minister Satya Kumar Yadav and Health Secretary G. Veerapandian. Those names are the appeal addresses on the card. A reply dated 23 or 24 August is not on this filing. This desk will not invent one.

The cadres named on the lock include staff nurses, laboratory technicians, pharmacy officers, ECG technicians, emergency medical technicians and dialysis technicians, among other contract and para-medical staff under the Directorate of Medical Education, the Directorate of Public Health and the Directorate of Secondary Health. Naming a cadre is not a headcount. This desk will not invent a statewide strength figure that is not on the card.

The graded calendar, as reported, runs in steps. Representations to Government General Hospital superintendents, District Medical and Health Officers, District Coordinators of Hospital Services and Collectors continue till 27 August. Black badges on duty cover 24 to 27 August. Lunch-hour protests and human chains are listed for 28 and 29 August. A shutdown of online work, including Electronic Health Records and Ayushman Bharat Health Account registrations at primary health centres, is listed for 30 August to 1 September. Pen-down at Directorate of Medical Education and Directorate of Secondary Health offices is listed for 2 and 3 September. A State-wide dharna is listed from 6 September. A duty boycott is listed from 8 September, with prior notice and emergency safeguards. Eight September is the announced last step. It is not today’s action. This desk will keep that lock.

The charter on the card asks for immediate regularisation; full gross pay pending regularisation; ex gratia of ₹50 lakh and a family-member job if death occurs on duty; Employees’ Provident Fund coverage and paid medical leave; and a transfer facility for staff posted away from families for years. ₹50 lakh is a demand figure. It is not a notified compensation scheme. Regularisation is a demand. It is not a government order printed here.

No 23–24 August government reply that cancels the calendar sits on this morning’s re-verification. No fresh filing found this morning withdraws the black-badge window. The agitation remains first-phase and graded. Readers who want a settlement gazette, a regularisation list, or a boycott already under way will not find those papers on this card.

Visakhapatnam holds the JAC chairman’s workplace and the reporting dateline. The calendar is statewide under the Health Department. Vijayawada appears only as the 17 June protest cited on the card.

The honest picture is Monday, 24 August 2026; black badges on duty through 27 August; representations till 27 August; human chains 28–29 August; online-work shutdown 30 August–1 September; pen-down 2–3 September; dharna from 6 September; duty boycott announced from 8 September with emergency safeguards; a charter that includes ₹50 lakh on-duty death ex gratia and regularisation; an appeal to Satya Kumar Yadav and G. Veerapandian; and no government reply that cancels the steps. Until a settlement writes, the black badge is the live public picture. The boycott is still a date on a calendar.