Over 800 anganwadi workers on Tuesday gathered near Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence on the ninth day of their protest.
Rising inflation, increased workload due to COVID-19 and a close monitoring of their daily activities through a tool called Poshan Tracker has forced the workers at anganwadis or child care centres in Delhi to once again go on an indefinite strike.
They have demanded that the government recognise them as its employees and pay them at least minimum wages.
Added responsibilities
“Since the COVID-19 pandemic, anganwadis have been shut. So, I have to carry out door-to-door delivery of take-home ration. I often visit my area to also conduct vaccination drives. In the beginning of the pandemic, in addition to our regular responsibilities, we were also asked to distribute masks, sanitisers and sensitise people about precautions against COVID-19. We have to also conduct surveys of those who have Covid-19 in our area of people who have received different doses of vaccines. Sometimes we have to escort elderly people to the vaccination centres. Despite new responsibilities every now and then, our salary is less than ₹10,000 per month. How can we run a household with this much salary at a time when everything is only getting costlier,” asked Kavita Rani.
Under the Union government’s Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 scheme (earlier known as Integrated Child Development Services), pregnant women, lactating mothers and children between six months to six years receive six services at an anganwadi. These include supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health and nutrition check-ups, health and nutrition education, pre-school non-formal education, referral services.
Recognised as volunteers
There are nearly 13.2 lakh anganwadi workers and 11.8 lakh helpers who reach out to 9.06 crore beneficiaries across the country.
The Centre recognises them as “volunteers” who receive an “honorarium” instead of wages from the Centre as well as States. The Centre pays an honorarium of ₹3,500 per month for a worker and ₹2,250 per month for a helper.
In addition to which different State governments pay a varying amount of honorarium. In Delhi the total share of the Centre and State governments leads to an honorarium of ₹9,698 for a worker and ₹4,839 for a helper.
The workers have demanded that they be recognised as government employees so that they are entitled to Provident Fund, pension, medical facilities and summer and winter breaks. They demand a salary of at least ₹20,000 for a helper and ₹25,000 for a worker.
“If I am only a volunteer, why does the government insist on recording my daily attendance on their Poshan Tracker mobile application. Why do they ask me to send me my GPS location and demand that I share photos of different activities I have carried out,” says Sunita.
Since 2017, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has rolled out a mobile application called Poshan Tracker to record delivery of different anganwadi services and growth and nutrition indicators of the beneficiaries. But workers feel it is more of a tool to snoop on them. “If food packets weigh less, we are threatened with pay cuts. Instead, the government should look at improving the quality of dry ration, which often includes worm-infested black channa or bad quality dalia,” adds Sunita.
Poshan Tracker app
Protesters say that though the government has launched the Poshan Tracker app, they have to pay the monthly phone bills from their pockets to be able to record their daily tasks.“The application is a nightmare. It often doesn’t work. It often doesn’t work, so our supervisors say that we should enter the details at 9 p.m. It is only on paper that we are supposed to work from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. As the app is unreliable, our work has actually doubled since we have to simultaneously enter data in as many as 24 registers,” says Shabnam Bano.
The Centre had last revised the honorarium by ₹1,500 for anganwadi workers and ₹750 for helpers in October 2018. But protesters say they haven’t yet received the enhanced amount. Moreover, the Delhi government has gone ahead and deducted this amount from its share. The protesters now say that they will travel to Punjab to “expose” Mr Kejriwal who has promised the anganwadi workers and ASHAs (community health workers) there that he will resolve their problems if the Aam Aadmi Party is elected to power.
