{"id":2825,"date":"2019-04-02T10:43:03","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T10:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nehadixit.in\/?p=2825"},"modified":"2023-10-05T13:08:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T13:08:41","slug":"how-much-is-a-womans-labour-worth-rs-37-a-day-according-to-the-central-govt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nehadixit.in\/how-much-is-a-womans-labour-worth-rs-37-a-day-according-to-the-central-govt\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Is a Woman’s Labour Worth? Rs 37 a Day, According to the Central Govt"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mid-day meal cooks in Bihar \u2013 primarily women from Dalit and Adivasi communities \u2013 are subject to the worst kind of institutional gender discrimination.<\/div>\n
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Neha Dixit<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Patna\/Jehanabad\/Bhojpur (Bihar): On February 11, 2019, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi served the third billionth Akshay Patra mid-day meal in Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, he said<\/a>\u00a0that his \u201cgovernment has given special focus on the nutrition of the children because a healthy childhood is the foundation of New India\u201d.<\/div>\n
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\u201cModiji talked about his government keeping these children healthy, but who is cooking nutritious food for them? Did he mention them? No. Because in \u2018New India\u2019, cooking continues to be women\u2019s invisible divine duty?\u201d asks Poonam, a 40-year-old mid-day meal cook from Jehanabad district in Bihar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The day Modi made this speech, Poonam was participating in the 35th day of a relay hunger strike by Bihar\u2019s 2.5 lakh mid-day meal cooks. They had surrounded Bihar\u2019s legislative assembly to protest what is presently the worst pay gap in India.<\/div>\n
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According to government data, there are 71,000 primary and middle schools in Bihar, which are serving mid-day meals to 1.2 crore children made by over 2,48,000 mid-day meal cooks, most of them women. Each of them is paid Rs 37 per day for cooking mid-day meals for up to 300 students. The cooking takes them 7-8 hours per day. Their salary rounds up to Rs 1,250 per month.<\/div>\n
The Wire\u00a0met over 69 mid-day meal cooks, all women, across five districts of Bihar and found out how the Indian state has subjected over 30 lakh women mid-day meal cooks to the worst pay gap and sexual harassment to create a cheap female labour economy.<\/div>\n
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\u2018Volunteers, not workers\u2019<\/div>\n
Poonam has worked as a cook since 2002. \u201cAll my life I had seen my family working as farm labourers on the land of the\u00a0zamindars. I didn\u2019t want to do that.\u201d Poonam is from the Kahar community, classified as a Scheduled Caste community in Bihar. In a feudal system, Kahars would work as farm labourers for ten hours a day. Till 2002, they were given 10 kg rice and sometimes Rs 10 a day. \u201cMy husband used to spend all that money on alcohol. And you can\u2019t lead a life on rice alone.\u201d<\/div>\n
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In 2001, the Supreme Court issued a directive ordering all states to institute a warm school lunch \u2013 known as a \u2018mid-day meal\u2019 \u2013 in government primary schools. India\u2019s Mid-Day Meal Scheme is the world\u2019s largest school feeding programme, reaching out to about 12 crore children in over 12.65 lakh schools all over the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cooking material in a classroom<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Several women, like Poonam, were hired in 2002 to cook this warm lunch for students from the most socio-economically marginalised sections. \u201cThe job was a chance at dignity and independence from abusive landlords for so many women like me. And I grabbed it,\u201d she says.<\/div>\n
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At present, there are around 30 lakh cook-cum-helpers, 90% of whom are women. According to the Union government, there are 2.5 million cooks across the country, 40% of whom are from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.<\/div>\n
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Most cooks are appointed by the local community, often involving the local village\u00a0pradhan. Women who are single breadwinners, widows, Dalits, tribal and from other marginalised communities, from Below Poverty Line (BPL) households, are preferred.<\/div>\n
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What Poonam envisaged for herself was a far cry from the state\u2019s vision of female labour.<\/div>\n
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According to the government\u2019s documentation of the scheme, the cooks are \u2018volunteers\u2019 and not \u2018workers\u2019, paid an honorarium, not wages. They work for 7-8 hours a day, but their work is \u2018part-time\u2019. They have no social security, pension or other medical benefits. They are only paid for ten months a year, since schools are closed for two months during summer vacations in Bihar.<\/div>\n
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Anshu, Poonam\u2019s friend, who is from the Pasi community also classified as a Scheduled Caste, has worked as a mid-day meal cook at the primary school in Ratni block of Jehanabad for 15 years. She says, \u201cThe idea that cooking is a voluntary job is in itself patriarchal. And in this case, it is the state\u2019s idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mid-day meal cooks in Jehanabad<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When the mid-day meal programme started in 2002, the cooks were paid Rs 0.60 per child on the number of days the food was cooked. In 2009, the Union government increased its share of the wages to Rs 1,000 per month. It has remained that for the last decade, along with abysmal honorarium paid by individual states.<\/div>\n
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The southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka on average pay at least Rs 6,000 to the cooks. They are also eligible for a monthly pension and gratuity after retirement. Cooks in north India continue to be paid peanuts. They are paid Rs 2,500 in Haryana and Rs 1,800 in Punjab. Bihar has one of the lowest remunerations \u2013 till January 2019, their fixed honorarium was Rs 1,250 per month for ten months a year.<\/div>\n
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\u201cTell me, what kind of calculation is this? The planners assumed that there will also be a pool of poor, desperate women who will readily work for a pittance,\u201d Anshu\u2019s assertive voice emerges from her small frame wrapped in her beige saree with blue border.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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