Cabinet nod to pay hike for anganwadi workers

RANCHI: The state cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal to increase the honorarium of angwanwadi workers. The decision comes after chief minister Raghubar Das on Saturday announced a hike in pay for angwanwadi workers after thousands of them protested against the government this month.

On Wednesday, the cabinet hiked honorariums of anganwadi sevikas and laghu sevikas by Rs 500 and by Rs 250 for sahayikas.

The honorariums now stand at Rs 6,400 for sevikas, Rs 4,700 for laghu sevikas and Rs 3,200 for sahayikas. Cabinet coordination secretary Ajoy Kumar Singh said, “The state exchequer will bear an additional fiscal burden of Rs 33.82 crore per annum for the increase in pay.” The state has 35,800 sevikas, 35,800 sahayikas and 2,051 laghu sevikas — a potential chunk of electorates who also implement various health schemes of the state government.

Reacting to the decision, Congress’s Pakur MLA Alam Gir Alam said the hike was “peanuts”. He said, “For a long time, we have been demanding implementation of the Uttar Pradesh model where anganwadi workers get at least Rs 10,000 a month. However, the state government deceived them again by increasing their pay by a meagre amount after failing to stop their protests through a lathicharge.”

About a dozen proposals were taken up at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting where another significant decision was a nod to the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission for workers of civic bodies, nagar palikas and nagar parishads across the state. Singh said, “It will come to force with effect from April 1, 2019, and a total of 2,000 employees will benefit from the move. An additional Rs 12 crore will have to be spent annually from the state exchequer for this.”

The state government also amended the service rules for town planners engaged in civic bodies. “As per the new amendments, lateral entry will be possible against 50% vacancies of different grades of town planners in the civic bodies. This is to sort out the crisis of town planners,” said Singh.

Several home guard jawans, who were awaiting allowances for performing duties in various byelections since 2016, panchayat polls etc, will also receive their due soon as the cabinet approved Rs 12 crore in this regard. The cabinet also revised funds for the centrally sponsored Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana to Rs 4,469 crore from the existing 3,696 crore. Singh said that the additional funding gap will be met through the state coffers.