Getting Rs 47 per day, Midday meal cooks unable to make ends meet

Tribune News Service

Patiala, May 17

Getting merely Rs 47 per day, thousands of the midday meal cook workers are unable to make ends meet during the lockdown.

They say they are risking their lives every day by going house to house to distribute food to the kids.

Midday meal cooks culminated their week-long protest, here, on Sunday.

They had been holding their protest across the state to highlight their plight owing to their meagre salary. During the protest, the cooks came out of their houses and clanked the utensils to demand a hike in their monthly salaries.

However, despite working for four to five hours daily, they are getting a monthly salary of just Rs 1700.

Paramjit Kaur from Safdipur village, a miday meal cook, said that they had been making food for over 100 students every day, however, their own family members were really under stress.

She said: “We get around Rs 47 per day and the majority of the cooks are widows, therefore, it becomes very challenging to run a household with such meagre amount, especially, during the lockdown.”

Moreover, over 43,000 cooks, employed under Midday Meal scheme, don’t have any health insurance.

A cook, Rani from Dalanpur village in Patiala, has been the worst-hit sans insurance. She narrated that she had been operated four times during the lockdown for her throat. She will have to stop her treatment, hence forth, because she has already run out of money, says Rani.

Rekha Rani from Suniarheri village in the district said: “Since long, they have been getting meagre salary because making food for over 100 kids is not a serious work in the eyes of the authority.”

Vikram Dev, member, Democratic Teachers Front, said: “As per the Minimum WWages Act, an unskilled labour gets Rs 338 per day. It is unfortunate that the government is not giving even minimum wages to those workers. We demand that the government should immediately hike their monthly salary.”