2-month salary delay leaves mid-day meal workers financially stranded

Mamta Sharma, the state president of the Mid-Day Meal Workers Union, met with the Deputy Commissioner and District Education Officer today to demand the immediate release of pending salaries and honorarium for the past two months. She criticised the state government, led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, for its lack of empathy toward mid-day meal workers, stating that the non-payment has put the workers under severe financial distress.

“The already meager honorarium that we receive has been withheld for the past two months under the pretext of opening bank accounts for thousands of mid-day meal workers in Canara Bank,” Sharma said. “We should be allowed to open accounts in other banks as well, as Canara Bank has limited branches in many villages and towns across Punjab. In order to open accounts, we will have to travel 25-30 km from our homes.”

She further questioned the rationale behind such policies, “Why are mid-day meal workers being subjected to this unnecessary harassment? Most of us are women from single-income or low-income families. This delay in payments is creating immense pressure on our households. How are we expected to feed our children and families under these circumstances?”

Sarabjit Kaur Bhorchhi and Harjinder Kaur Gehri, both mid-day meal workers from Amritsar, said the Aam Aadmi Party’s election promises have remained unfulfilled. “We were promised that the honorarium of mid-day meal and sanitation workers would be doubled from Rs 3,000 to Rs 6,000, and that each cook would be provided with free insurance coverage of Rs 5 lakh. But it has all been empty talk, no action has followed,” said Gehri.

“We had demanded that sanitation workers laid off from schools with less than 100 children should be immediately reinstated because schools with less than 100 students also need cleanliness,” she added.

The workers submitted a memorandum outlining their demands to the Deputy Commissioner and District Education Officer, addressed to Education Minister Harjot Bains.