Govt to discuss wage hike for mid-day meal workers

Minister of Health and Education, Sakeena Itoo, on Monday informed the house that the matter of enhancement of wages of cooks-cum-helpers working under the PM POSHAN (Mid-day meals scheme) would be taken up in the upcoming project approval board (PAB) meeting.

The Minister said this while replying to a question raised by Muzaffar Iqbal Khan in the Legislative Assembly.

The Minister informed the House that as per the guidelines and norms of the Union Ministry for education, with the sharing pattern of 90:10, the cooks-cum-helpers are being paid monthly honorarium of Rs 1,000 only for preparation of single time meals.

The Minister informed that the demand for enhancement of honorarium of the cooks-cum-helpers was projected during the previous meeting of PAB, but the same was not accepted with remarks that cooks-cum-helpers are uniformly paid throughout the country and the same cannot be enhanced in isolation for any state or UT.

The Minister also informed the House that there had been a provision for engagement of land donors as casual workers under SRO 520, but that has ceased to exist and as such, there is no such policy by virtue of which employment can be provided to the land donors. She added that School Education Department is providing land compensation under the Union Territory Capex Budget to liquidate the claims of land donors in a phased manner including those of Thanamandi constituency in Jammu region.

Meanwhile, Sakeena Itoo emphasised timely disbursement of pension among the beneficiaries under different pension schemes including integrated social security schemes (ISSS) and Indira Gandhi National old age pension scheme (IGNOAPS) in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Minister was replying to a question raised by Shamim Firdous in the Legislative Assembly.

She informed that a detailed procedure for disbursement of pension under integrated social security schemes has been provided in ISSS Rules 2022 which is similar to the procedure for disbursement of financial assistance under IGNOAPS (CSS). However, the payment under IGNOAPS is being done through NSAP-PPS portal.