'Unpaid, overburdened': Mid-day meal cooks to protest over pending wages in Kerala

Peeved at the government’s ‘apathy’, the cooks under the aegis of ‘School Pachaka Thozhilali Sanghadana’ are gearing up for yet another protest.
Image for representational purpose only.
Image for representational purpose only.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : For the past 35 years, T P Ayishabi has been cooking the noon meal for the students of AMLP School, Kuttikkattoor in Kozhikode. Hours of toil amid the searing heat and smoke in the school kitchen have now become second nature for her. But what bothers the 57-year-old is the need to stage frequent protests in front of ministers’ houses and the Secretariat miles away just to get her pending wages. There are 13,766 noon-meal cooks like Ayishabi in various schools across the state who are poorly paid, overburdened and left with no job security.

Peeved at the government’s ‘apathy’, the cooks under the aegis of ‘School Pachaka Thozhilali Sanghadana’ are gearing up for yet another protest. On March 11, they will stage a ‘nilpusamaram’ (standing protest) outside the official residence of General Education Minister V Sivankutty to press for their demands that include payment of nearly three months’ unpaid wages. 

“During the past three decades, cooking on brick hearths in front of the minister’s houses to lodge our protest has become more or less a ritual. We are perhaps the only section of labourers who have to protest at least twice a year to get our wages,” she said. With the academic year coming to a close, they are worried if they will continue to remain unpaid during the vacation. It was after protests that the government provided Rs 2,000 as an allowance to them during the summer vacation last year. 

The noon-meal cooks are entitled to an honorarium of Rs 600 a day. With an average of around 20 working days a month, they get monthly pay of up to Rs 12,000. However, the impractical norm in the noon-meal scheme, which stipulates one cook for every 500 students has left them high and dry. “It is practically impossible for one person to prepare food for such a large number of students. So, we rope in a helper that cut short our already meagre wage by nearly half,” rues Ayishabi.

Due to the non-payment, the helpers desert the job. According to S Shakunthala, state president of School Pachaka Thozhilali Sanghadana, the previous UDF government had agreed to revise the norms and assign one cook for every 250 students, taking into account their huge workload. However, the decision was shelved by successive governments citing fund crunch. “Many among us have been injured, some fatally, while at work but the families have not received any assistance. The cooks are not even considered as part-time contingent workers though they are the mainstay of the noon-meal scheme in schools,” she said. 

Increasing the honorarium to Rs 900  per day, revising the norm to ‘one cook for every 250 students’ and considering them as part-time contingent workers are among the demands. Noon-meal committees have been formed in over 12,000 schools for the smooth conduct of the scheme, funded by the Centre and the state in a 60:40 ratio. However, due to the delayed disbursal of funds, there have been instances where headmasters have had to spend from their own pockets to keep the scheme up.

General Education Minister V Sivankutty had recently informed the assembly that fund to the tune of Rs 262.3 crore in the current fiscal was allocated to schools only by November 2022 as the Centre had delayed its share of funds.”The scheme is being run on the basis of rates that were fixed in 2016. Issues relating to its conduct will be addressed once the Centre starts disbursing funds based on the revised material cost rates,” said a senior official of the general education department. “However revision of cooks’ wages is a policy matter that the government has to decide,” he added.

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