Most states and UTs suggested Centre to hike midday meal workers’ wages

states/UTs including Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh called for the amount to be enhanced to Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000 per month.

Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Rajasthan, and Sikkim suggested a minimum wage of Rs 400 per day. Meghalaya and Tripura suggested Rs 8,000 per month, and Kerala called for Rs 10,000.

Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Odisha suggested that the honorarium be enhanced but did not specify the amount.

Going by data submitted in response to a question in Parliament in August last year, the monthly honorarium paid to midday meal cooks remains at Rs 1,000, without any additional amount, across eight states/UTs, including Goa, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Delhi. The other states have added varying amounts to the initial Rs 1,000. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, the monthly amount is a total of Rs 4,100 to Rs 12,500, while it is Rs 12,000 in Kerala, and Rs 10,000 in Puducherry.

While in last year’s instance, states were responding to a specific call for suggestions, this is not the first time that they are flagging low payments for midday meal cooks. The matter has been brought up by several states/UTs in annual meetings with the Centre that are held to discuss the budget and plan for PM-POSHAN.

Going by the minutes of these meetings, Chhattisgarh has called for an enhancement in the honorarium for cooks in at least 2024-25 and 2025-26. In both instances, the request was “noted” by the Programme Approval Board for PM-POSHAN, and the state was asked to submit specific proposals.

To the question in Parliament last year on the wages of workers under PM-POSHAN, Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary had responded: “The overall responsibility for smooth functioning of the scheme including providing hot cooked and nutritious meal to the eligible children as well as engagement of cook-cum-helpers (CCHs) lies with the state governments and Union Territory administrations…”

Among other suggestions that the states/UTs made were a request for an enhancement in the material cost for meals, extension of the scheme to students up to Class 12 , and provision of breakfast under the scheme.

A senior official in the Education Ministry said that several states have requested for an increase in the honorarium for midday meal cooks, and the matter is being looked into.