Traffic at the city centre here came to a standstill as hundreds of Anganwadi workers and helpers took out a protest rally at city centre Lal Chowk and held sit-in protests on M.A road and residency road on Thursday.
Hundreds of Anganwadi workers started their protest rally from Partap Park and marched towards M.A road and Residency road. Shouting slogans, they also held a sit-in at Regal Chowk, outside press enclave, and at Ghanta Ghar.
The Anganwadi workers have been protesting from the past five months to press for their demands. The workers said that they are getting six hundred rupees as honorarium from the state share while their counterparts from other states get ten thousand rupees as honorarium on regular basis. “We have been protesting from the past five months but coalition government did not pay heed to our demands. Since Governor’s rule has been implemented now, we are hopeful and expect our demands regarding increase in monthly honorarium and release of salaries on regular intervals will be addressed,” said Mymoona Nazki, J&K state president of the association. “Our state government gives us only 600 rupees as monthly honorarium and our counterparts in states like Haryana and Delhi get ten thousand. It is unfortunate that we were not paid our meager salaries even on Eid. We were paid only three months of our salaries after Eid against our eight months pending salaries.”