Midday Meal Workers Protest

Before the elections the Bihar government had raised the honorarium of midday meal workers by 25% due to pressure from the district and state level series of agitations. As a result of these struggles, the midday meal workers should have got Rs. 1,250 instead of Rs 1,000 from August 2015 onwards. However, the ground reality is that in most schools honorarium for only three months has been paid in 2015. The government had also announced that in case of death of a midday meal worker, the family of the worker would receive a compensation grant of 4 lakhs; however, as they have no identity cards, on what basis can their families receive this grant?

With the above demands the Fatuha unit of the Bihar State Rasoiya Sangh  staged a protest at the Fatuha block office on 8 January 2016 led by the association’s state President Saroj Choube and Joint Secretary Sona Devi. Fatuha unit Joint Secretary Shanti Devi, Treasurer Savitri Devi, Subhadra Devi, Kanchan Devi, and CPI(ML) Fatuha Secretary Shailendra Yadav addressed the protesters. The midday meal workers from Belchhi and Daniyawan also joined the protest.

The rally proceeded from Fatuha railway station, with women shouting slogans such as ‘Saadhe barah sau mein dum nahin, 1500 se kam nahin’ (Even Rs. 1250 is not enough, No less than 1500), ‘give government employee status to midday meal workers’, ‘pay honorarium arrears immediately’, ‘pay honorarium into midday meal workers’ accounts’, ‘issue ID cards to midday meal workers’, ‘issue 4 cotton saris as uniform’, and ‘give the benefit of insurance’. In spite of being informed, the BDO was missing from his office.

Addressing the meeting, the speakers said that the government extracted the votes of the midday meal worker by making a paltry increase of Rs. 250 in their honorarium, but now that they are coming to the government with their problems the concerned officers are fleeing away from their offices. The midday meal workers are not being paid the money they have earned and therefore, they must strengthen their organization and further sharpen their agitation.

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