Ludhiana, October 23
While the festival of lights ‘Diwali’ is being eagerly awaited by those, who wish to spend lavishly on celebrating the festival, there are few, for whom it may be a ‘black-Diwali’ as they have not been paid their meagre salaries by the government for the past over eight months. Poor cooks, cooking midday meals in the schools running under the National Child Labour Project (NCLP), who have not been given single penny by the government since February 2013.
Swaran Singh, president of the INTUC Chapter, who is running one such school, said there were about 40 schools running under the NCLP and the cooks were not paid their monthly salaries for the past over eight months. He said it was Central Government-funded scheme. But the funds were to be released by the ADC (D) here.
He added that there was one cook for each school and he/she was paid a salary of about Rs 2,000 a month. “In this meagre salary, a cook also works as a peon in the school, being running for the wards of labour class. But they have not been paid their salaries by the government so far. No one is giving us any satisfactory reply on the issue and the condition of the cooks is very unfortunate in absence of money,” said Swaran Singh.
One of the cooks, Harjinder Kaur (name changed), said she was to get married in December and for a poor and needy person like her, Rs 2,000 a month was a big amount. “I have to get Rs 16,000 from the government, which can be of great help to my family. But all our requests go unheard as no one is willing to release the salaries,” rued the cook.
It may be mentioned here that few days ago, the Education Minister, Sikandar Singh Maluka, had made a statement that all the cooks had been paid the salaries and government had not withheld anybody's salaries.
While the festival of lights ‘Diwali’ is being eagerly awaited by those, who wish to spend lavishly on celebrating the festival, there are few, for whom it may be a ‘black-Diwali’ as they have not been paid their meagre salaries by the government for the past over eight months. Poor cooks, cooking midday meals in the schools running under the National Child Labour Project (NCLP), who have not been given single penny by the government since February 2013.
Swaran Singh, president of the INTUC Chapter, who is running one such school, said there were about 40 schools running under the NCLP and the cooks were not paid their monthly salaries for the past over eight months. He said it was Central Government-funded scheme. But the funds were to be released by the ADC (D) here.
He added that there was one cook for each school and he/she was paid a salary of about Rs 2,000 a month. “In this meagre salary, a cook also works as a peon in the school, being running for the wards of labour class. But they have not been paid their salaries by the government so far. No one is giving us any satisfactory reply on the issue and the condition of the cooks is very unfortunate in absence of money,” said Swaran Singh.
One of the cooks, Harjinder Kaur (name changed), said she was to get married in December and for a poor and needy person like her, Rs 2,000 a month was a big amount. “I have to get Rs 16,000 from the government, which can be of great help to my family. But all our requests go unheard as no one is willing to release the salaries,” rued the cook.
It may be mentioned here that few days ago, the Education Minister, Sikandar Singh Maluka, had made a statement that all the cooks had been paid the salaries and government had not withheld anybody's salaries.
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