Mid-day meal workers oppose privatization move

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, July 28: Around 4,000 mid-day meal cook-cum-helpers staged a dhar at Dighalipukhuripar in Guwahati on Friday in protest against Dispur’s move to hand over the mid-day meal scheme to a private party. There are around 1.14 lakh such workers in the State.

The All Assam Mid-Day Meal Workers’ Union leaders said that they had been working since 2005 without remuneration when the scheme had been introduced. “We started to receive Rs 1,000 remuneration a month for 10 months a year from December 2009. Dispur has failed to understand as to how a family with Rs 1000 a month can run. Now the department wants to hand over the scheme to Akshay Patra Foundation, a private concern. We won’t let that happen. What loss the government has incurred from us? We want immediate cancellation of the decision to hand over the scheme to a private party, raise of our remuneration to Rs 5,000 a month for 12 months a year as the case with other States. We also want the arrears remuneration from 2005,” they said.