With thousands of midday meal workers staging a protest, students in a few government schools were not able to get their noon meals.
The protest began on Tuesday in Bengaluru as thousands of workers from across the State came to Freedom Park armed with their clothes and food to carry out an strike over their pay disparities.
The workers have a 12-point charter of demands such as inclusion in the payrolls of the State government, timely release of their salary, and stopping outsourcing of midday meal programme to private organisations or non-governmental agencies.
Sources in the Department of Public Instruction claimed that alternative arrangements were made to provide meals for students.
“In some schools, only a few workers had gone for the protest and the remaining workers cooked the meals, while in other places, the School Development and Monitoring Committee made arrangements,” a source in the department said.
Some of their other demands are ensuring that the workers get accident relief benefit as well as provident fund and ESI benefits. There are nearly 1.16 lakh midday meal workers across the State and they are demanding the intervention of the Chief Minister to address their grievances. Currently, the workers and the helpers are paid an honorarium of ₹2,700 and ₹2,600, respectively.
H.K. Ramachandrappa, president, Karnataka State Midday Meal Workers’ Federation, said they would call off the strike on Wednesday.
