Why Chhattisgarh’s midday meal workers have not given up their fight for better pay

On February 24, the Chhattisgarh state government presented its annual budget for the coming financial year. Among those who scrutinised its details closely were the state’s midday meal workers, thousands of whom had been on strike in shifts for two months, demanding an increase in their wages, from under Rs 70 a day currently to at least Rs 350.

The workers were in for a crushing disappointment – there was no mention of them at all in the budget.

The total lack of even an acknowledgement from the government left them dismayed.

The protest had extracted a tragic cost for some. Workers told Scroll that cold weather during those weeks, and unsanitary conditions at the site had led to many contracting ailments. In late January, two striking workers, Dulari Yadav and Rukmani Sinha, died after falling ill.

“We protested for two months,” Ramrajya Kashyap, the state president of the Chhattisgarh School Madhyanbhojan Rasoiya Sanyukta Sangh, told Scroll. “We spent all our money and begged others for food and money to continue protesting, and not a single official or leader came to see us.” The association represents more than 90,000 mid-day meal workers from across the state.

Kashyap added, “The least they could have done was to tell us that our demands would be ignored.”

The day after the budget was presented, the workers adjourned their protest at Naya Raipur’s Tuta Dharna Sthal. By then, it had by then been underway for 59 days. On March 2, they returned to their work at government schools in their hometowns.

But Kashyap explained that the workers did not view this as the end of their struggle. He noted that midday meal workers had over the decades mounted several protests, and won small increases in their pay. “We are disappointed but we have not lost,” he said. “We are thinking of picking up the protest again before the July assembly session.”

He added that they would also aim to issue a “muh todh jawab”, a jaw-breaking response, to the current government in the 2028 state election.

The scheme and the demands

Midday meal workers work under the centrally sponsored Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman scheme, formerly known as the National Programme for Mid Day Meal in Schools.

Under the scheme, the government provides one hot cooked meal to children enrolled up to Class 8 in government and government-aided schools across India.

According to the scheme’s guidelines, schools with up to 25 students have to employ one “cook-cum-helper”, while those with between 26 and 100 students have to hire two. For every additional 100 students a school enrols, they have to hire one more worker.

Midday meal workers are not classified as permanent government employees but as volunteers. In keeping with this categorisation, the scheme’s guidelines state that the workers are to be paid for around 10 months of the year, when schools are open, and not for the other months, when they are closed.

Currently, the central government pays an honorarium of Rs 1,000 per month for each worker. However, the scheme’s guidelines note that states are “free to give more honorarium over and above the prescribed minimum”.

In March 2025, in an answer to a parliamentary question, Jayant Chaudhary, the union minister of state for education, listed the rates paid to workers across the country. Among the states that paid the workers the highest honorariums were Kerala, which pays Rs 12,000 a month, and Lakshadweep, which pays between Rs 18,000 and Rs 20,200 a month. However, Chhattisgarh pays only an additional Rs 1,000 to each worker.

Workers say this pay is not commensurate with the time and effort that is required from them. The pay they are demanding, they argue, is more consistent with government-mandated wages for several other comparable categories of workers in the state.

“Most of us have been doing this work for some 30 years in the hope that the government realises our worth and increases our pay,” Kashyap said. “Who can afford to work six hours a day and survive on Rs 66 a day?”

The workers also demand greater stability for their posts. “We want all part-time posts to be made full-time posts,” Kashyap said. “And no workers should be removed if the number of students at a school drops.”

They have also put forward demands that have arisen over the course of the protest itself. On January 29, the workers marched to the Naya Raipur railway station – in response, police lodged FIRs against 600 unnamed workers, accusing them of rioting. The workers have demanded that these FIRs be withdrawn. Further, they have called for the government to pay compensation to the families of the two workers who died in the period of the protest.

Gruelling workload

Around 95% of Chhattisgarh’s midday meal workers are women. Development economist Dipa Sinha noted that the scheme encourages the employment of marginalised women. “The scheme prioritises women from Dalit and Adivasi communities, and also single women who are widowed or unmarried, or whose husbands are unable to work,” Sinha said. “In many cases they are the primary breadwinners in their homes.”

Those Scroll spoke to described a taxing daily routine. “Most of us are occupied for five-six hours daily in schools,” said Durga Sen, a worker from Rajnandgaon district. “We have to reach school by 9 am and start preparing the food. Many schools don’t provide gas cylinders, so we have to cook on firewood, which makes our eyes burn. By 1.30 pm we serve food, and then washing up can take till 3 pm.”

Workers complained that this routine left them little time to take up other work to supplement their incomes. “There is no time to take up other labour or NREGA work,” Sen said.

Workers explained that while the lack of time hampered their ability to earn an adequate income, so also did the administration’s ambiguous categorisation of them.

Kachra Chandrakar, a worker from Mahasamund district, noted that when it came to wages, “we are viewed as part time workers who don’t deserve proper pay”.

But in other contexts, she added, they are treated as government employees, such as when they are assigned election duties. Crucially, she noted, local authorities also often view workers as formal government employees, and thus deny them other work or benefits to which such employees are not entitled, under schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, and Mahatari Vandan Yojana.

As a result, workers struggle to earn enough to meet their families’ basic needs. “They say they are providing us opportunity, but they are actually exploiting us,” Chandrakar said. “Most of us are unable to send our children to college.”

Teeja Nag, a widowed worker from Dantewada district, recounted, “Last year I couldn’t even buy new clothes for my children on festivals. I am unable to feed them well, so I have had to send them off to stay with my relatives.”

The workers’ strike drew support from teachers in the state, and parents of students. “They do a lot of work and it takes up half their day,” said a middle school principal that Scroll met in Dhamtari district, who requested anonymity because they had not been authorised to speak to the media. “Even the cleaning staff gets paid more, around Rs 3,400, and they work fewer hours than them.”

Parents, meanwhile, expressed deep appreciation for the workers. “My wife and I are both labourers and we are not at home in the daytime, so we depend on the school to feed our two children lunch,” said one parent, Chetan Mahar, whom Scroll also met in Dhamtari. “What is Rs 2,000 a month these days? On good weeks where I find decent work, I earn that much within a week.”