No Vaccination Certificate, No Salary: Punjab Govt Tells Employees

The Punjab government has told its employees they won't get their salaries if they don't furnish their Covid vaccine certificate.

It has asked the employees to register their full or provisional vaccination certificate number with the state government's human resources portal iHRMS.

If they fail to do so, they will not be able to get their salaries, the government said in an order.

The move is being seen as the state government's attempt to encourage more and more employees to get themselves vaccinated against Covid as concerns escalate over the new variant of coronavirus, Omicron.

In the order issued on Tuesday, the state finance department asked all senior officers, heads of the departments, divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners and others to ensure compliance.

According to the order, an arrangement for entering the Covid vaccination certificate number on the Integrated Human Resource Management System (iHRMS) portal has been made.

Government employees should be informed that they should register the Covid vaccination certificate number of both doses with the iHRMS, said the order, adding if any employee has got one dose administered, he/she should register the number of the provisional certificate.

It also asked to link the Covid vaccination certificate number with the salary module so that in case an employee does not furnish information regarding vaccination, his/her salary is not released.