Mid-day meal cooks seek pay hike

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 3

Members of the Mid-day Meal Workers Union today convened a meeting at Children’s Home under the leadership of state president of the union, Lakhwinder Kaur.

It was decided that the workers would stage a protest on December 9 in favour of their demands.

The mid-day meal workers said for the past several years, they had been demanding an increase in their salaries and regularisation of the jobs of workers who have been working on contractual basis ever since the scheme was initiated by the Central Government under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan.

Addressing the members, Karamjit Kaur saod for the past several years, the state government has been exploiting the mid-day meal workers by making them work on meagre salaries.

Terming the increase of Rs 500 in the salaries in January 2017 ‘a cruel joke with poor people’, she said in Tamil Nadu, mid-day meal cooks were working on regular basis on Rs 5,500-7,500 pay scale.

“In Punjab, the mid-day meal cooks are given Rs 1,700 and that too for 10 months in a year. The cooks are given Rs 2,500 in Haryana, Rs 6,000 in Kerala and up to Rs 9,000 in Pondicherry. The state government has turned its back to our demands,” she said.

They also accused the Congress government of being least concerned about the government schools as the delay in the release of funds for the mid-day meal scheme has stopped it in many government schools.

Elaborating on their demands, the mid-day meal cooks said they demanded that their salaries be hiked to Rs 8,403, extension of insurance cover, regularisation of their jobs, salaries for 12 months in the year, dearness and uniform allowances and leave at par with what is given to the permanent employees of the State Education Department.

They announced that in case the state government continued to ignore their demands, they would stall their services and sit on protest till the time the government gives in to their demands.