The Karnataka Rajya Anganawadi Naukarara Sangha has decided to start a protest campaign from Thursday, Seprember 2 to Sunday, September 5, in which anganwadi workers across the state will visit MLAs and hand them a request letter consisting of several demands. According to the union's President S Varalakshmi, when they protested in March 2021, the government had assured them that their demands would be accommodated in the 2021 Budget. However, the government did not keep its word.
The union had placed a demand that salary weightage needs to be given to senior anganwadi workers. Salary weightage means that the more senior a worker is, she must receive a higher salary.
“An anganwadi worker who has worked in the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme for 40 years and somebody who joined just now are paid the same salary. We had been demanding a seniority weightage but the government had been arguing that it can’t be provided because we are not government employees. Finally, in the 2021-22 Karnataka Budget, a recommendation was made to provide a seniority weightage. However, this didn’t happen.”
In a press conference, Varalakshmi said that anganwadi helpers have a salary of Rs 5,000 while workers get Rs 10,000 per month. “After the work of providing eggs to children was added to the schedule, the daily load on helpers has increased. About 25% salary gap between the workers and helpers is acceptable but 50% is too much,” said Varalakshmi.
Speaking about the situation in mini anganwadis, she said, “In mini anganwadis the helpers do the work of both workers and helpers but get paid only a helper's salary. This is double exploitation.”
Since the pandemic began, anganwadi workers have been involved in several works including visiting houses to caution people about COVID-19 and also identifying undernourished children and providing them nutritious food. Varalakshmi said that many workers have had to travel to far off villages to provide the food kits during the lockdowns.
According to Varalakshmi, despite working during the first wave of COVID-19, the government refused to pay any compensation to families of anganwadi workers who had died because the government claimed that they were not front-line warriors. She said that 29 anganwadi workers had died during the first wave.
Varalakshmi further said that the government only accepted to pay the compensation of Rs 30 lakh during the second wave when the workers refused to work without an assured compensation. However, Varalakshmi alleged that only 19 anganwadi worker families received the compensation out of 50 people who died.
According to Varalakshmi, the government hasn’t paid gratuity to workers who retired. “Several Anganwadi workers have retired in 2015 and still haven’t received gratuity. Many have died also," she said.
She further alleged that the government had reduced the amount that had to be given. “The anganwadi workers had to be given Rs 1.5 lakh but they said that it cannot be given and they reduced the recommendation to Rs 50,000. Rs 5.5 crore allocation was necessary for this but that too wasn’t given,” she said.