Nearly 2000 out of the 5100 nutritious meal scheme employees in Vellore district abstained from work and staged a demonstration opposite the Collectorate here on Wednesday. It was part of a Statewide agitation by the Tamil Nadu Nutritious Meal Employees’ Association in support of their demands which included among other things making them full-time government servants with a regular pay scale.
The other demands include payment of a legal monthly pension of Rs. 3,500 to the retired employees and payment of a lump-sum amount of Rs. 3 lakh on retirement.
The striking employees including the organisers of the nutritious meal scheme had locked the meal centres where they were working forcing the block development and panchayat officials to break the locks in many centres to serve meals to the schoolchildren. Food was procured from outside and served to the children in packets in most centres.
An official of the Nutritious Meal Scheme Department said that meals were served to the children in all the 2,341 nutritious meal centres in the district with the active help of the village panchayat presidents and secretaries and field staff of the block development offices.
Fast, jail-filling agitations
The striking employees have planned to observe a one-day fast on Thursday, and to resort to a jail-filling agitation on Friday.
