Mid-day meal workers demand hike in salary

Amritsar, June 1

Hundreds of mid-day meal workers participated in a rally held in front of the residence of Power Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO at New Amritsar here on Thursday.

On the call given by state union, workers of Amritsar and Tarn Taran districts under the leadership of state general secretary Mamata Sharma sat on a dharna and submitted a demand letter to the Tehsildar (Amritsar-1), who assured the workers that he would talk to the minister and held a meeting with the government soon.

Addressing the rally, Sarabjit Kaur Bhorchi, Raj Kaur Tarn Taran, Paramjit Kaur Vairowal and Harjinder Kaur Gehri, all leaders of the mid-day meal workers’ union, said the government had not yet fulfilled the promise made by AAP leaders in the run-up to the Assembly polls.

“They had promised to double the honorarium of cooks and helpers before the elections. We are being paid a meagre salary of Rs 3,000, which is not enough to run a household. Some of us have been working for years without any raise and no incentives,” they said.

They said the exploitation of mid-day meal workers continued. The workers demanded that the minimum wages law should be implemented for the mid-day meal workers or they would be forced to go on strike. “Some of their other major demands included: stop taking extra work from them; stop retrenchment of workers on the pretext of reducing the number of children; reinstate the retrenched workers; provide at least insurance cover are: they should not be made to do extra work, stop retrenchment of workers on the pretext of reducing the number of children; reinstate the retrenched workers; provide an health insurance cover of at least Rs 5 lakh to each worker; 6-month maternity leave with salary; 20 casual leave and 10 medical leave with pay; and uniform twice a year,” said Mamata Sharma.

The rally was attended by several members of the Democratic Employees’ Federation.