ONE thousand rupees a month, that too for ten months a year, is paid since 2009 as the wage more than 25 lakh mid day meal workers, providing noon meal for 11 crore children in 12 lakh schools in the country. A worker has to cook food for an average of hundred children a day. In more than fifty per cent of the schools, they have to get firewood, water etc for cooking.  Cleaning, washing the utensils and adding all the work they do, on an average, they have to work for six hours a day. By any of the norms of nutrition, rupees one thousand a month is so pitiable that it cannot address the malnutrition of the children of these workers who engage in the work of a scheme which addresses the child malnutrition and classroom hunger.

To bring this big scam of the loot of labour in public and to pressurise the government to do justice to the workers, the All India Coordination Committee of Mid Day Meal Workers (CITU) decided to organise yet another march to parliament, the third one in one year, on February 24, 2015.

In spite of the fact that most of the unions of mid day meal workers are newly formed and this being third all India mobilisation in one year, more than eight thousand mid day meal workers from all over the country - from Assam, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP, and Uttarakhand participated in the programme.

A rough estimate of the actual food prices since 2009 will give a clearer picture of the living conditions of the school mid day meal workers.

If we calculate the average expenditure for a family of four on minimum essential food items, since 2009 on an average the prices per month had increased almost 70 per cent.

The budget allocation for the mid day meal scheme had marginally increased these years. But the average allocation for the remuneration of the mid day meal workers had come down from 31 per cent of the total budget allocation for the mid day meal scheme in 2009-10 to 18 per cent of the total in 2014-15. (see the table).

According to the ministry of HRD quarterly reports, even in this meager allocation, only up to 60 per cent is paid to the workers by the states. In 2013, the amount spent towards the remuneration of the mid day meal workers in the first quarter is 13 per cent of the total allocation, in the second quarter it is 31 per cent and in the third quarter it is 60 per cent!

During this period, the trade union movement had succeeded in pressurising the government to increase the minimum wages in different sectors and states. The notified minimum wages of the semi skilled workers in Delhi had increased from Rs 4100 per month in 2009 to Rs 9542 per month in 2014 (Source: ministry of labour, GOI). It has now become a national shame that the mid day meal workers, majority of whom are women who belong to the backward sections of the society such as widows, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs etc, are paid such an amount which is nowhere near to fulfill the basic need of human beings.

Continuous struggles by the Mid Day Meal Workers under the banner of the All India Co ordination Committee of Mid Day Meal Workers (CITU) on this basic demand and also against the privatisation of this crucial scheme, had brought these issues into public debate and has resulted in the recommendations of the 45th Indian Labour Conference that the mid day meal workers and other scheme workers should be recognised as workers, be paid minimum wages and be given social security and pension. The Supreme Court commissioners on the right to food judgment had also recommended payment of minimum wages to the mid day meal workers.

The government of India was forced to agree in the 45th ILC held in May 2013 that the remuneration paid to these workers shall be increased immediately. The same promise was repeated in the parliament, by the government. But the two central budgets which were placed after this promise, one by the UPA and another by the NDA government, did not allocate any money for this.

Continuous deputations, letters by MPs etc had fell on deaf ears. The present HRD minister had promised twice, to the delegation of the AICCMDMW(CITU) the immediate implementation of the promise, but it turned out to be part of Modi government’s hollow promises.

A march to parliament on August 5, 2014, observance of black day - wearing black badges on Children’s Day on November 14, 2014, block and district level protest actions on the New Year Day of 2015, the mid day meal workers under the leadership of the AICCMDMW(CITU) took it to the streets in a sustained manner.

The main demands raised in the march to parliament held on February 24, 2015 were,

·         Immediate implementation of the declared increase of Rs 1000 in honorarium with effect from April 1, 2013

·         Implement the 45th ILC recommendations – regularisation, minimum wages and pension

·         Payment for all 12 months, through zero balance bank account

·         180 days paid maternity leave

·         Stop privatisation of the MDMS by handing over to corporate NGOs

·         Ensure safety of mid day meal workers and provide medical insurance.

·         Mid Day Meal Workers must be covered under RSBY and Janshree Beema Yojna

The march was inaugurated by Tapan Sen, CITU general secretary and MP, at Jantar Mantar. He exposed the neo-liberal corporate agenda of the Modi government. He called upon the mid day meal workers to intensify the struggles to change the anti-worker policies.

The presidium consisted of Saroj (Haryana), Kanta (Himachal Pradesh), Khiramani (Odisha), Harpal Kaur (Punjab), Manju Gaud (Rajasthan), Kanyawati Verma (Uttar Pradesh), Roshni Bisht (Uttarakhand), Nirmala (Kerala) Raju Sail (Rajasthan) Mansur Bahi (Maharashtra)– all Mid Day Meal Worker’s Union leaders from different states.  Jagat Ram from HP conducted the meeting.

Leaders of the unions from different states addressed the gathering. They include Jaibhagawan, Haryana), Vinod Kumar (Bihar), Rampyar Yadav (UP), Thankamma (Kerala), Rekha Rana (Uttarakhand) and Bhim Singh Coted (Rajasthan).

The meeting was addressed by noted economist Jayati Ghosh. She said that it is crucial to continue the struggles not only to improve their working conditions, but also to save this crucial scheme.

Ranjana Nirula, treasurer, CITU and convener, All India Coordination Committee of ASHA workers called upon them to develop the struggle of scheme workers.

Sumitra Chopra, joint secretary, All India Democratic Women’s Association, P Krishnaprasad, treasurer, All India Kisan Sabha and Suneet Chopra, joint secretary, All India Agricultural Workers Union expressed solidarity to the struggle of mid day meal workers.

A delegation consisting of Tapan Sen, A R Sindhu, convener, AICCMDMW and secretary CITU, Jaibhagawan (Haryana), Bibekanand Adhikari (Assam), Vinod Kumar (Bihar) met Smriti Irani, minister for human resources development. The minister assured that she will look into the matter positively and will write to the states also to increase the remuneration of the mid day meal workers. 

A R Sindhu, convener, AICCMDMW(CITU) concluded the meeting with a call to hold district/block level protest demonstrations throughout the country and burn the effigy of Narendra Modi in the first half of March, in case the remuneration of the mid day meal workers are not increased in the ensuing central budget. The future course of actions will be decided by the all India committee to be held in March.

The march passed a resolution in support of the demands of the peasantry including the withdrawal of the Land Acquisition Ordinance and marched to Parliament Street to join their struggle under the leadership of the AIKS against the Land Acquisition Ordinance.