SHILLONG, OCT 9: After two decades of cooking mid-day meals on honorarium, cook-cum-helpers under PM POSHAN in Meghalaya have decided to limit their work to once a week in protest.

The call was given by Gina Nengnong, president of the Union of Cook-cum-Helper PM POSHAN Meghalaya, at a meeting in Shillong on Friday.

“We have served voluntarily for 20 years and accepted the token from the Government. From now onwards, we have to think of ourselves, we have to think of our future,” Nengnong said.

“For 20 years we have walked this service, we have worked for the society through the school children. We request the Prime Minister to look towards us,” she added.

Stating that cooks work like mothers, she said, “We treat school children like our own children… Until now in our state, there has not been a single school that has reported that children who ate the mid-day meal fell sick, and this is because we work from the heart, not thinking about the wage.”

She said the voluntary tag does not match the work conditions.

“The work we do every day, going to work every day, it is no longer appropriate to call it voluntary. If we are sick, do they allow us to be absent? Do they allow us to skip to go for other daily wage work? We have to go every day. If we send someone else in our place, we have to pay from our own pocket,” she said.

“We want you to change, to recognise us the cooks, to respect us if you think we are the foundation of this scheme,” Nengnong said.

As the scheme pays only for 10 months, the Union said cooks will during October and November cook only once a week and help distribute rice so it does not rot, and spend the remaining days on other wage work.

“Because the payment is honorarium, we too will go to work in that manner… We have no hesitation in taking this decision so that we can go for other work elsewhere to meet our needs,” she said.

Nengnong said the Union is awaiting a response from the Union Cabinet and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with a final call to be taken in February.

“We will wait for the Union Cabinet. While we await the decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the second week of February we will have a General Meeting. If we do not get a reply to increase the honorarium, we will announce to end it completely,” she said.