NT Correspondent

Bengaluru

 “It’s been more than four months that the mid-day meal workers are not being paid their salary,” said CITU president S. Varalaxmi talking about the plight of mid-day meal workers in the state.

 Mid-day meal workers across the country have been protesting for almost six months due to delays in salary and lack of benefits, but the government has turned a deaf ear to their grievances.

“There are more than one lakh workers who have given their entire life to this work. Still, they are not being paid. Not only that, even the schemes and funds introduced by the government for mid-day meal workers are never implemented,” said Varalaxmi.

 Most of the worker’s salary ranges from Rs 2,000-3,500, and the government also announced a hike of Rs 1,000, but the salary never reached the workers. This has left lakhs of workers in Karnataka in financial distress.

One of the mid-day meal workers, Savita, of Bagalkot district said that she has not received her salary for the past 3 months and it is becoming difficult for her to feed her family. “I have 2 children and my husband is a daily wage worker. It is becoming difficult to survive without money,” she said.

 Swati Narayan, of the Right to Food campaign, says that the government is being unfair to women workers. “I think it’s really unfair that these women are rendering services that they are not being compensated for. This is a feminized profession where the major workforce is women, so basically, all the burden falls on women who are taking care of children and still not being paid,” said Swati.