Termination notices issued to 26 anganwadi workers ‘active’ in strike

Hundreds of workers and helpers have been on strike since January 31 with the primary demand of a substantial increase in pay. They have also been demanding that they be given the status of government employees — currently they are considered honorary workers — along with the benefits that accompany it.

On February 24, Women and Child Development Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam had said that the Delhi government will be increasing their honorariums in response to the strike. He had announced that, after a meeting with some anganwadi workers unions, it was being increased from Rs 9,678 for workers and Rs 4,839 for helpers monthly to Rs 12,720 and Rs 6,810 respectively from March 1.

However, the protest did not end with this announcement and the Delhi State Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union, which has been leading this strike, stated that it had not called for a meeting with the minister.

With this continuing strike, termination notices were issued by the department to multiple workers on Saturday evening which stated that continuance in their roles would be “against general public interest” and that their services have been terminated “with immediate effect”.

These termination letters issued to the workers concerned are identical and state that since they are honorary workers, their contract states that their engagement can be terminated without prior intimation. The letters also state that they had been issued show cause notices last month and their responses had been found “unsatisfactory”.

They state that the worker: “deliberately attempted to disrupt the functioning of the ICDS scheme which involves essential public services, her conduct has been found to be in gross violation of the terms and conditions of her honorary engagement. Her conduct is liable for lacking sensitivity, failure to discharge duties and responsibilities cast upon her, and dereliction of duty. Her continuance as an AWW (anganwadi worker)/AWH (anganwadi helper) would be against the general public interest…”

One of these workers, who has been working there for the last 12 years, said that they are formulating their response to this. “We are all preparing our response to this, which we will send on Monday, but even then, our protest will continue. We had continued with the strike because we were not satisfied with the government’s offer. They have increased the honorarium just by around Rs 2,000, whereas our demand was much more. We also have lots of other demands such as ESI and PF benefits. We weren’t going to just take crumbs and wind up our protest,” she said.

According to a WCD official, they are expecting more workers and helpers to start reporting for duty in the coming week after this.

“As far as their demands are concerned, the basic demand was enhancement of honorarium which has been done. The scheme is made, financed, and structured by the central government and no state can regularise even a single worker without recruitment rules or orders given by the central government. So, this regularisation demand is not under purview of the state government… Now it seems to be a matter of politics and ego of the union’s leaders, who had not responded to the minister’s call for the meeting… The issue of malnutrition is major and services to lactating and pregnant women and young children cannot be stopped. Now there is no valid reason for the strike to continue and it is not justifiable to hamper these services for more than a month,” said the official.

Before the hike was announced, anganwadi workers had been receiving a monthly honorarium of Rs 9,678 and helpers Rs 4,839. Their pay had been increased to this rate from Rs 5,000 and Rs 2,500 respectively, after they had gone on strike nearly five years ago. They have been demanding that this be increased to Rs 25,000 per month for workers and Rs 20,000 for helpers.

There around 21,000 workers and helpers employed in anganwadi centres across Delhi. With the protest raging on since January 31, many anganwadi centres have been shut.