Nutritious meal employees stage protest pressing various demands

Members of the Tamil Nadu Nutritious Meal Employees Association held a protest here on Wednesday pressing for various long-standing demands. 

Sahaya Tamilselvi, District president of the Association, said, as per the DMK’s election promise, a monthly pension of ₹6,750 should be provided to all the workers. 

Once the DMK headed by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin took over the government, the pension promise was expected to be fulfilled, but it ended up in disappointing all the noon-meal workers as none of them have turned into real benefits, she added.  

Though the mid-day meal and breakfast schemes were boasted to be one of the important projects in the State, the more than 60,000 vacant positions in the nutritious meal scheme have disrupted its effective functioning, she worried.  

“We as the workers of the scheme, even when trying to put our wholehearted effort into the works, we cannot do it effectively,” she added.  

Gratuity should be granted to nutritious meal employees on par with other government employees. 

Alike 12 months maternity leave provided to women employees in the government sectors, the nutritious meal employees should also be granted the same period of paid leave, Ms. Sahaya Tamilselvi noted.  

As the workers were frequently asked to travel to nearby districts and capital city for training purposes, a fixed allowance of ₹300 should be given to the workers, the protesters demanded.  

Apart from this, they also made a request to the State government to ensure the workers receive timely increment and allowance as per their experience and quality of work. 

The protesters warned that if their demands were not met they would further continue their protest through district-level protests on January 24, 25 and 26. A mass rally in Chennai on January 30 and indefinite strike from February 3 was also on the cards.