Anganwadi workers to hold protest in Chandigarh on January 30

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, January 11

Members of the Punjab Anganwadi Workers’ Union conducted a meeting and discussed their plan of action regarding their long-standing demands at Teachers’ Home here on Saturday. The anganwadi workers and helpers have been pressing the government for full payment of honorarium and other demands for the past few months.

At the meeting, the representatives of the union discussed that despite holding agitations at regular intervals and bringing the matter to the notice of authorities concerned, nothing concrete had been done in the matter. All members in the meeting reached a consensus that a state-wide protest would be conducted in front of the Director, Social Security, Women and Child Development Department, building in the Chandigarh head office on January 30. Representatives from different districts in the Malwa region also participated in the meeting.

State president of the union Hargobind Kaur said, “The current monthly honorarium of an anganwadi worker is Rs 8,100, which was Rs 5,600 earlier. The Union Government had increased the honorarium for anganwadi workers in October 2018. As per the 60:40 ratio scheme, the Central Government allocates Rs 4,500 and the state Rs 3,600. The Punjab Government has not been making full payments.”

“We have met the Director on numerous occasions and brought to her notice that anganwadi workers in Bathinda block have not been receiving their salaries on time and they are being forced to pay the rent of anganwadi centres as well. We demand immediate release of their salaries and appropriate steps must be taken by the state government to ensure that children, who were shifted to nursery classes in government schools, could be brought back to the anganwadi centres operating in the state,” added Kaur.

She said the government had even decided to provide ex gratia of Rs 1 lakh to anganwadi workers and Rs 50,000 to helpers retiring at the age of 70, but it had not provided the same. The demand for regularisation of jobs had been lying unmet for decades and there were no retirement benefits for the workers.

“We also demand retirement benefits for those anganwadi workers who have put in many years of their service. There are more than 54,000 anganwadi workers and helpers in 22 districts of the state. Successive governments have failed to fulfil their demands. There were high hopes from the Congress government, but even after two years of its rule, things have not changed for us. Now, we have decided to start an agitation against the state government,” she added.

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