Mid-day meal workers end stir after government's assurance

Thousands of mid-day meal workers who had come all the way to Bengaluru from various districts across the state to stage a protest on Monday have called off the strike following an assurance from Primary and Secondary Education Minister S Suresh Kumar that he will listen to their grievances.

Mid-day meal workers were not allowed to reach Freedom Park to stage a protest as permission was not given for their protest. The police stopped them at Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Railway Station and even detained a few of them, including state president of CITU Varalakshmi, leading the protest.

Though the police stopped them at Railway Station, the workers started staging a protest at the Railway station. Railway officials who feared that their operations will be affected, urged police to remove the protesters.

Finally, with the intervention of Education Department officials and assurance from Suresh Kumar that a meeting will be convened on February 13 to discuss their demands, the protesters called off the stir. However, they warned the government of protesting on a large scale if the minister fails to convene a meeting and consider their demands.

Demands

The protesters have over 12 demands with the major one being the fixing of minimum monthly wages for the workers. Adding midday meal workers into the payroll of school staff, stopping agreements with NGOs like Akshaya Patra and others for supplying mid-day meals, timely release of salaries within the fifth day of the month, bring midday meal workers under the Labor Department, provide PF and ESI benefits, to make mid-day meals programme a regular program of the school, provide Rs 7 lakh accidental relief and Rs 5 lakh death relief to provide salaries during the Dasara and Summer vacation and many other demands like these.

Commissioner's order

It can be recalled that City police commissioner Bhaskar Rao imposed section 144 on prohibiting protest by the mid-day meal workers in the city. The prohibitory order will be in force from February 3 to 20.

Rao stated in the order issued on Sunday that, the order was issued based on the report submitted by the DCP West about the provision complaints registered against Union's representatives and problems faced by the general public due to the protest.

The order stated that State Akshara Dasoha workers Union has sought permission to hold indefinite protest by their 15,000 to 20,000 workers starting from February 3 from Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Railway station to Freedom Park and same had been denied by the DCP West Ramesh B.

The order further added, the Union had protested during January 21, 2013, September 2, 2016, March 20 and September 14 of 2017, February 8, 2018, and December 10, 2019. All these occasions the protesters sat on the road, blocked the vehicles including ambulances and violated rules.