The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Government agencies accused of patriarchal mindset

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 29, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Government agencies accused of patriarchal mindset

Special Correspondent

‘They underpay women doing grassroots work’

Convention of Akshara Dasoha workers held
Bringing NGOs into midday meal scheme criticised

Bangalore: It is the patriarchal mindset of government agencies that has led to women employees in various government schemes being underpaid, according Brinda Karat, MP and vice-president, All-India Democratic Women’s Association.

Addressing a State-level convention of the Karnataka State Akshara Dasoha Workers’ Association, Ms. Karat said women in various categories of grassroots work, such as anganwadi workers, women working for the Rural Health Mission and midday meal scheme cooks, were overworked but paid less than the minimum wages.

The Karnataka Government was now denying the midday meal scheme workers even their jobs by transferring the responsibility of providing meals to non-governmental organisations, she said. The scheme, primarily meant to improve enrolment in schools and child nutrition, also provided work to 1.20 lakh poor and Dalit women in Karnataka. Linking the privatisation move to the larger neo-liberal policies of the Government, she said that while the number of the poor was on the rise, schemes targeted for their benefit were dwindling.

Malnutrition

It was ironic that India, which boasts of a growth rate of 8 per cent, had seen an alarming rise in the malnutrition rate among women over the past five years. Seventy per cent of pregnant women were anaemic and every second child was malnourished and underweight, said Ms. Karat.

Baragur Ramachandrappa, Bandaya writer and former chairperson of the Kannada Development Authority, said the Government was striking at the root of the egalitarian spirit of the midday meal scheme by handing it over to NGOs. Many NGOs taking over the scheme were imposing Brahminical food habits by refusing to serve garlic, onion and eggs. It was a mockery of the principles of secularism, democracy and social justice, he added.

K.M. Umesh, CITU district secretary, said the foundation was being laid for the transfer of power to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the State by increasingly involving religion-based organisations in the scheme.

T. Leelavathi, joint secretary of the association, alleged that organisations such as ISKCON, which provide midday meals to many schools across the State, were making huge sums of money through donations from foreigners.

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