Midday meal cooks protest in Chhattisgarh: 47 days of striking for fair honorarium

Dulari Didi spoke astir however we can’t tally our household connected conscionable ₹66 a day. “We’re dying of starvation each day. It’s amended to dice once’ were her words.” At Tuta Dharna Sthal, a designated protestation tract successful Chhattisgarh’s Naya Raipur, Savita Manikpuri tears up recalling her past speech with Dulari Yadav. 

Thirty-eight-year-old Manikpuri from Dudhawa colony successful Kanker territory is among the hundreds cooks who person gathered astatine Tuta since December 29, 2025, connected an indefinite onslaught successful enactment of their demands. Key among these demands is simply a important summation successful the monthly honorarium of ₹2,000 oregon what translates to ₹66 per day. Dulari from Bemetara, successful her precocious 50s, was besides among them until hours earlier she died connected January 25.

On that day, Dulari took sick astatine the Tuta protestation site, and was hospitalised, wherever she died during treatment. A time later, Rukmini Sinha, different navigator from Balod district, died during attraction successful Rajnandgaon. She excessively had joined the protestation from January 20 to 23 and has returned aft her wellness worsened.

While doctors accidental some the women who died had underlying wellness conditions, the protesters support that some the deaths happened owed to vulnerability to the acold January weather. It has furthered their resoluteness to proceed their stir, says Manikpuri, adding that they person gathered nether the banner of the Chhattisgarh School Madhyanbhojan Rasoiya Sanyukta Sangh, an relation which represents the 87,600-plus midday repast cooks.

The protestation started with 3 cardinal demands: “Raising the honorarium according to the collector dar [rates of wages] that’s astir ₹350-400 per day, each the portion clip posts beryllium changed to afloat clip ones, and nary cooks to beryllium sacked if schools spot a dip successful the fig of students,” says Ramrajya Kashyap, the State President of the association.

He says that depending connected the district, anyone who gets enactment according to collector rates — an magnitude determined by the labour section — successful that territory draws anyplace betwixt ₹9,000 to ₹13,000 a period and that was the minimum a idiosyncratic needed to prolong their families. 

The relation is present besides demanding cancellation of a rioting FIR lodged against them connected January 29, erstwhile they took retired a rally. In addition, the cooks privation a compensation of ₹10 lakh each for the 2 who died during the protests.

Daily duties  

Manikpuri has 2 children, a husband, and a mother-in-law. Her older kid has graduated from school, but Manikpuri is upset she hasn’t been capable to gain capable to nonstop her to college. Her younger kid is successful people 11 and she worries astir his future.

“The concern successful the colony isn’t similar successful the city, wherever you tin go an electrician oregon enactment successful a store and person enactment year-round,” she says. Her hubby is simply a labourer, and enactment is seasonal. “There’ll beryllium enactment erstwhile the harvest has to beryllium cut, oregon erstwhile determination is operation work,” she says. He earns lone astir ₹250 a day.

Manikpuri wakes up astatine 4 a.m. and cooks for the full family, packing food, past sending her lad disconnected to school. She’ll locomotion to her ain schoolhouse astatine astir 9:30 a.m., astir a kilometre from wherever she lives.

“A cook’s occupation isn’t conscionable astir preparing and serving food; we person galore different tasks earlier and afterward,” she says. She and 2 different cooks unlock the schoolhouse gates, unfastened each the rooms and cleanable them. A navigator is appointed for each 50 students, and Manikpuri’s schoolhouse has 130. However, sometime, a azygous navigator whitethorn person to hole meals for much than the designated number, accidental the women connected site.

Depending connected the fig of children successful schoolhouse that day, the cooks spell to the women’s self-help-group-run stores to cod rations. They cleanable the atom and chop the vegetables, navigator the food, and person it acceptable 10 minutes earlier luncheon clip astatine 1:30 p.m. They service the children nutrient and past cleanable up.

By the clip she comes home, it is 3:30 p.m., and she indispensable navigator again. The children are bare and her hubby volition beryllium location soon.

A cooking state cylinder costs astir ₹1,200 rupees and determination are days erstwhile Manikpuri has to edifice to utilizing a woodfired stove due to the fact that the household cannot spend the cleaner fuel. Teeja Nag, a parent of 5 who is simply a widown and posted astatine a schoolhouse successful Dantewada district, says that successful her school, the cooks usage lone firewood, and it’s portion of their occupation to cod dormant wood.

Some cooks, similar Asful Nisha from Bagicha artifact of Jashpur district, accidental the work illustration besides includes increasing vegetables and maintaining the gardens wrong the schoolhouse campus. This is an summation since the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme, nether which astir of these cook-helpers are engaged, was renamed Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM-POSHAN) with a restructuring successful 2021.

The PM-POSHAN scheme, rolled retired for a five-year play from 2021–22 to 2025–26, provides 1 hot, cooked repast to students up to Class 8 successful authorities and government-aided schools. It replaced the scheme, which had been successful spot since 1995 to beforehand cosmopolitan superior education. Under PM-POSHAN, expenses are shared betwixt the Centre and States successful a 60:40 ratio, with the Union authorities besides supplying foodgrains.

The duties for a navigator are stretched connected days erstwhile determination is simply a sporting lawsuit oregon during elections, erstwhile they person to navigator for those connected polling duty. These other hours travel with nary further fiscal benefits. 

Working successful schoolhouse has besides brought distant tragic accounts: idiosyncratic being asked to cleanable up earlier gathering her dying mother, idiosyncratic hiring a replacement navigator astatine ₹200 to be her younger sister’s funeral.

Gender limitations  

Around 95% of the cooks are women. Forty-six-year-old Dhansi Yadav, who has been employed arsenic a navigator successful his colony of Tatipara successful Kondagaon territory since 1996, is 1 of the fewer men. Since past twelvemonth erstwhile his woman passed away, helium has been juggling respective responsibilities astatine home, looking aft his 3 children.

Dhansi’s begetter excessively was a navigator successful the colony school. He was employed astatine a regular wage of ₹15 per time erstwhile Chhattisgarh was a portion of Madhya Pradesh. For his monthly honorarium to interaction ₹1,000, Dhansi had to hold until 2011. That twelvemonth the wealth began being credited straight into the cooks’ slope accounts alternatively of them receiving payments done the schoolhouse teachers oregon the Panchayat. Since 2011, it has been hiked to ₹2,000 successful phases. His eldest girl was forced to driblet retired of assemblage owed to fiscal distress, helium adds.

Many radical instrumentality up the occupation due to the fact that they don’t person a choice. Both Dhansi and Manikpuri needed to beryllium adjacent to their children. When she applied for the job, 40–50 radical applied astatine the time, she says. “Many others were offered this occupation but declined, saying they had families and children, and couldn’t past connected specified a debased wage (₹1,000 successful 2011),” she says.

But determination was different crushed they joined: “We took up authorities enactment with the content that sooner oregon aboriginal the authorities would admit america arsenic salaried employees. It’s not similar if we enactment for ₹15 connected the archetypal day, we volition proceed to enactment for that armount for the remainder of our lives,” Manikpuri adds.

All the cooks are paid for 10 months a year; May and June are months of nary enactment and nary pay. In this gap, uncovering enactment nether Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which would perchance bring successful ₹268 each time for a navigator is besides not casual for most. First, they accidental determination are precise fewer opportunities and machines specified arsenic excavators are further shrinking the net. Even if determination is simply a job, officials contradict them enactment citing their names successful schoolhouse records.

Dhansi and Ramrajya person witnessed respective rounds of protests since the 1990s. While this did pb to a revision of honorarium, they were ne'er successful sync with ostentation and the realities of household employment.  

“From ₹1,000 it became ₹1,200 aft a protest. Then different protestation took it to ₹1,500, and past different 1 to ₹1,800. The past large protestation took it to ₹2,000,” Dhansi remembers. He says astir protests lasted betwixt 15 and 65 days.

The cooks recognize that their onslaught means children spell without their midday meals. In the poorer regions, families bash not person the resources to battalion luncheon for them. Ramrajya acknowledges that with exams approaching, nutrient and nutrition are critical, but the relation fears that withdrawing oregon pausing the question would acceptable it backmost years.

“I met Chhattisgarh School Education Minister, Gajendra Yadav, connected January 9 erstwhile helium said that adjacent without protests, helium had issued an bid to the section to summation the honorarium by 50%,” says Ramrajya, adding that the Bharatiya Janata Party had promised this successful their manifesto for the 2023 Assembly polls. From the stage, helium says into a microphone: “Irrespective of the enactment successful power, our demands person remained unmet.” When helium met the curate again connected January 28, the hike was revised to 25%., helium says.

The Hindu tried reaching retired to Gajendra Yadav and Pardeshi Siddharth Komal, Secretary, School Education, but determination was nary reply to telephone calls.

Lucknow-based Kailash Kashyap, the wide caput of the Rashtriya Rasoiya Sanyukta Sangharsh Morcha, a nationalist relation for cook-helpers, says that the Centre allows the States to summation the honorarium, and that States specified arsenic Tamil Nadu and Kerala supply importantly higher sums to cooks than Chhattisgarh oregon adjacent his location State of Uttar Pradesh, wherever again ₹2,000 is the honorarium. The protesters astatine the Tuta tract reason that Chhattisgarh, arsenic a resource-rich State, tin spend to wage more.

“I person been present for the past 31 years. Had they added adjacent ₹100 per period each year, it would astatine slightest person been ₹3,100 today,” says Ramrajya.