Mid-Day Meal Workers’ Union, Manipur (MDMWUM) has strongly condemned the warning notice issued by school authorities to some of the cooks, urging them to resume their normal duties even as the union is still under cease work strike for non release of their honorarium for past 19 months.
President of the MDMWUM, Y Indrani Devi told the media on Thursday that as the government remained silent some school authorities issued notice to their cooks, warning and calling them to resume their service within five days or be replaced with five (Five) days.
Such notice of school authorities had triggered them to intensify the ongoing agitation, she said while stating that “it is very unfortunate that even school authorities do not understand our plight caused by non-release of our honorarium, which is also very nominal. That kind of rude order of the school authorities really provoked us to intensify our ongoing movement.”
Indrani said that the cease work strike was launched only after the state government failed to respond to their demands wherein a memorandum was also submitted several times to the authorities concerned. They had also submitted a memorandum to the Education Minister on April 27 by highlighting the threatened made by school authorities to mid-day meal cook, she informed.
In the memorandum, the union had reiterated the problem encountered by them for not getting the honorarium while being economically deprived sections, Indrani said and appealed to the authorities concerned to discuss their matter as soon as possible.
Many other states had increased honorarium amount of mid-day meal workers. However, in Manipur the honorarium amount is still very minimal and not disbursing that small amount on time is very unfortunate, she said.
