Mumbai: ‘Paltry wages undermining midday meal scheme’

Funding issues will compromise the quality of food served to children in the state under the midday meal scheme now known as Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman PM POSHAN school officials and principal associations have warned the state education department The school principal association has alleged that due to paltry remuneration schools are unable to get good cooks for midday mealsA cookcumhelper CCH hired under the PM POSHAN receives a monthly lsquohonorariumrsquo of Rs 1000 for 10 months a year to prepare and serve meals wash and clean vegetables grain and pulses as well as sanitise utensilsHowever following increasing demands and pressure from schools and PM POSHAN workers the state decided to increase the remuneration a little ldquoSince 202122 we started providing additional funds from our own resources to these workers The state is providing an additional honorarium of Rs 500 to CCH per month from its own kittyrdquo said an education department officialHowever CCHs and PM POSHAN workers claim they the CCHs are paid the remuneration once in six months exacerbating the situationMahendra Ganpule the state spokesperson of the School Principalsrsquo Association said ldquoIf the remuneration is so meagre CCHs and workers arenrsquot paid on time will they want to be a part of the scheme CCHs across Maharashtra are paid Rs 1000 to Rs 1500 They might want to look for betterpaying jobs If we are really concerned about the quality of food served to students we need to hire trained cooks For that we need to pay them a decent salary of at least Rs 4000 to Rs 6000 Why would the cooks work wholeheartedly and provide good services for just Rs 1000 to Rs 1500 a monthrdquoGanpule added ldquoVegetables do not make it to the plates of students regularly due to pricing and the situation in the region The Centre pays according to uniform scale and does not consider local ratesrdquoAlso Read Mumbai FDA boss bats for change in system to recall drugsA CCH from a school in Satara said ldquoThe payment comes once in six months I joined just last year as a cook I am looking for another job There is no stability in this line of work I cook for students but there is no guarantee that I will get food for my family The remuneration isnrsquot much but they could at least pay us every monthrdquoThe Centre and the states share all expenditures under the MDM scheme in a ratio of 6040The National Programme of Midday Meal in Schoolsmdashunder which hot meals are provided to children in government and governmentaided schoolsmdashwas renamed PM POSHAN on September 29 2021Sushil Shejule the coordinator of Marathi Shala Sansthachalak Sangh questioned the change in the schemersquos name ldquoThey have not enhanced or upgraded anything so why change the name There are three issues right now If CCHs are paid better they will provide quality service Secondly the Aadhaar card linking criteria for the scheme will not be successful as most of the students in almost all schools in rural Maharashtra still do not have one and the cards of those who do have errors Finally if there is any problem with the meal teachers and principals are questionedrdquo said ShejuleAs per an annual Programme Approval Board PAB meeting held in June 2022 the Maharashtra school education department informed the Union government that the state had engaged 162991 CCHs while the PM POSHAN had approved the hiring of 175201 of them in 202122 in the stateDinkar Temkar director PM POSHAN government of Maharashtra could not be reached for comment till the time of going to print10The no of months per year cookcumhelpers get paidFacts and figuresThe state government has proposed to cover 5995405 children in primary classes and 4068009 children in upper primary classes during 202223The PM POSHAN PAB approved the coverage of 5520000 children in primary classes and 3750000 children in upper primary classes in the state in the period