The Uttarakhand Cabinet has raised the honorarium of female cooks of government schools to 3,000 per month. The cooks earlier received a salary of 2000 per month. The salary of PRD Jawans has also been increased to 2100 per month.
22.5 Crore To Help Disaster Hit People
As per reports in India TV, Union Power Minister R K Singh handed over a cheque of Rs 22.5 crore on November 22 to Uttarakhand Cabinet Minister Dhan Singh Rawat as financial support for the disaster-hit citizens in the state. An official release further stated that the amount was collected from seven power PSUs, including the NHPC and the NTPC, under their corporate social responsibility. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami – who had virtually attended the program – also thanked the Union minister for the heartfelt gesture.
Incessant rainfall for three days from October 17-19 destroyed houses and triggered landslides in Uttarakhand, killing more than 70 people besides damaging roads and bridges.
Thanking the Centre for providing three helicopters to the state immediately after the disaster, Dhami said they had helped in saving the lives of more than 500 people after the calamity.
MDM Cooks/Helpers Belong To Poor Background
According to the Annual data of Mid Day Meal report 2011-12, there were 30560 cooks cum helpers/Bhojan Mata are engaged in MDM. All bhojan Mata are women living below the poverty line. Their wards are studying in the school where they are engaged as a Bhojan Mata since most of them are illiterate and need training related to different aspects of MDM viz. health, hygiene, security of food grains, hazards of fire, safety, quality and quantity of food grains, procurement of different food grains etc. Since most of the bhojan Mata are illiterate, so the training module prepares to train them.
No Salary From 8 Months
Earlier, this month the female cooks and helpers of government schools in Lucknow complained of not receiving their honorarium of 8 months. According to the reports of newsclickin, Despite tall claims of the state government about not facing a fund crunch, cooks and helpers alleged that they had to run from pillar to post to get their honorarium. They claimed they were informed that no budget has been released for them
According to the data given by the primary education department of the UP government, 18 lakh students studying in 1.68 lakh schools under the mid-day meal scheme in the state benefit from the scheme. According to the government, 3.95 lakh cooks are employed to provide mid-day meals to the students daily. These cooks are given an honorarium of Rs 1,500 per month for ten months. (TheLogicalindian)
