Thiruvananthapuram | The Kerala government has hiked the honorarium of over 26,000 ASHA workers in the state by Rs 1000, state Finance Minister K N Balagopal said on Saturday.

A total of Rs 31.36 crore has been sanctioned for the distribution of the wages of ASHA workers during the months of January and February.

With this, the remuneration of ASHA workers in the state would go upto Rs 7,000 and 26,126 people would benefit this, the minister said in a statement.

The hike is retroactive from last December.

Noting that the honorarium in the sector is completely paid by the state government, the minister said the Centre provides just Rs 2000 as incentive to the ASHA workers.

In the statement, Balagopal also accused the union government of not allocating the amount sanctioned for the activities of the National Health Mission (NHM) for the last three months.