Maharashtra: Anganwadis challenge poll duty before HC; court seeks ECI affidavit on Tuesday

| TNN | Apr 22, 2019, 19:27 IST
MUMBAI: The Bombay high court is set to decide whether over 3700 anganwadis can be roped into election duty by the Election Council of India (ECI) this forthcoming Lok Sabha polls in the state. Anganwadis, who say they are honorary workers in the field of child development area receiving less than minimum wages, moved the court to challenge the ECI requisition order of April 9-10 for poll duty.

They contend they are not “staff’’ of any local, state or central authority or company, nor of any university, and hence exempt under the Representation of People Act.

Their inclusion in election duties will prevent effective implementation of salutary provisions of National Food Securities Act, 2013. The elections are scheduled on Monday and feeding programmes will be unavailable for two consecutive days, says the petition, also that “designating anganwadis as ‘other polling officers’ without taking into cognizance their education is appalling.’’

The petition filed by Sangeeta Chachale and an Anganwadi workers’ union assails the directions of an assistant election commission officer to assign them poll duty and relies on a 2010 ‘clarification’ of the EC that these workers “cannot be compelled to perform election duty without their consent.’’


The returning officer’s checklist manual says that contractual or Angangwadi workers not to be engaged in election duty. The HC bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka on Monday asked the ECI if it is ready to say the manual is “not mandatory.’’ ECI counsel Pradeep Rajgopal said he would make a statement. The HC said, “Will ECI file an affidavit?’’ and sought one by Tuesday when the matter will be heard again for orders to be passed.


The petition points to the socio-beneficial aspects of the system of anganwadis. To combat high levels of malnourishment, the Indian government had in 1975 introduced the “Integrated Child Development Scheme’’, an outreach programme for early childhood care and nourishment.


In Maharashtra, there are over 1.1 lakh anganwadi centres. They provide support to over 5.3 lakh pregnant women, 4.17 lakh nursing mothers and over 61 lakh children below the age of six years. There are over 83,000 severely underweight and over 5.5 lakh children underweight in the state, it's said.


The petition also said that in 2006, the women and child development department in Maharashtra had written to all Zilla Parishads that anganwadi workers under the ICDS cannot be assigned any work outside it.
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