Anganwadi workers seek solution to problems

Ongole: The Anganwadi workers who concluded the 36-hour-long protest in front of the district collectorate at Ongole on Tuesday demanded the government to immediately resolve their long pending issues and clear the dues.

The Anganwadi workers took up the agitation under the leadership of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions and spent one and a half days in front of the Collectorate. On the second day of their protest, the CITU district general secretary M Ramesh spoke at the protest, presided over by the Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union district president Y Satyavati.

He said that Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy failed to keep his promise to increase the salary of the Anganwadi workers more than that of their counterparts in Telangana, and questioned why he is not remitting the salaries of the workers in time by merely pressing the button. He said that the government is lending a deaf ear to the direction of the Supreme Court to provide Anganwadi workers with the gratuity benefit.

Another leader of CITU, SD Haneef said that the ICDS is being neglected ever since BJP came into power at the Centre. He said that the Union government brought National Education Policy 2020 against the basic principles of the ICDS, and the state government is supporting it by trying to merge the Anganwadi centres into primary schools.

CITU district president Kalam Subbarao said that the government brought the Poshan tracker app to reduce the number of beneficiaries, and demanded the parents to link the Aadhaar cards of their children to it. He said about 30 per cent of the children didn’t get the Aadhaar cards even now, and the government rejected the benefits to them. Meanwhile, the apps are brought into force without imparting any training to the workers and without checking if there is a mobile signal in the area.

The Anganwadi workers and the CITU leaders presented a memorandum of demands to the DRO R Srilatha. The DRO announced that they will arrange a joint meeting to resolve the issues of the Anganwadi workers, including their pending salaries, and promotions to the workers.