Minister for School Education and Higher Education, Sakeena Itoo, today informed the House that the matter of enhancement of wages of Cooks-cum-Helpers working under the PM POSHAN (Mid Day Meals Scheme) would be taken up in the upcoming Project Approval Board (PAB) meeting.
The Minister said this while replying a question raised by Muzaffar Iqbal Khan in the Legislative Assembly.
The Minister informed the House that as per the guidelines and norms of the Union Ministry for Education, with the sharing pattern of 90:10, the Cooks-cum-Helpers are being paid monthly honorarium of Rs.1000 only for preparation of single time meals.
The Minister informed that the demand for enhancement of honorarium of the Cooks-Cum-Helpers was projected during the previous meeting of PAB under the PM POSHAN scheme, but the same was not accepted with remarks that cooks-cum-helpers are uniformly paid throughout the country and the same cannot be enhanced in isolation for any state or UT.
The Minister also informed the House that there had been a provision for engagement of land donors as casual workers under SRO 520, but that has ceased to exist now and as such, there is no such policy by virtue of which employment can be provided to the land donors. She added that School Education department is providing land compensation under the UT CAPEX BUDGET to liquidate the claims of land donors in a phased manner including those of Thanamandi Constituency.
Mir Saifullah, Mehraj Malik and Balwant Singh Mankotia raised the supplementaries.
