Chennai, Feb 7 (IANS) Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) leader Dr Anbumani Ramadoss on Saturday called upon the Tamil Nadu government to urgently open talks with protesting noon-meal and anganwadi workers, urging it to address their long-pending demands, including retirement benefits and improved wages.

In a statement, Anbumani said thousands of noon-meal workers, cooks and assistants across the State have been staging protests for nearly five days, pressing the government for better service conditions, enhanced pension benefits and higher gratuity payments.

He criticised the government’s approach to the agitation, alleging that instead of engaging in dialogue, authorities attempted to detain protesters. “Suppressing their voices through detentions rather than holding negotiations is highly condemnable,” he said, adding that these workers form the backbone of Tamil Nadu’s widely appreciated noon-meal scheme that supports lakhs of schoolchildren every day.

The PMK leader stressed that most noon-meal staff have been serving for years as part-time employees with meagre pay and without adequate social security. He demanded that they be made permanent employees and provided regular time-scale salaries, similar to other government staff.

According to him, the current pay structure does not reflect the scale of responsibility they shoulder. Anbumani recalled that during the previous Assembly session, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had announced certain welfare measures, including raising the monthly pension of retired noon-meal workers from Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,400 and doubling the retirement benefit from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh.

However, he said the workers continue to struggle to make ends meet and are now demanding that the monthly pension be increased to Rs 6,500.

The ongoing deadlock between the government and the workers has begun to affect the functioning of the noon-meal scheme itself.

Anbumani pointed out that nearly 43,000 noon-meal centres across Tamil Nadu have been disrupted due to the protest, potentially impacting thousands of students who depend on the programme for their daily nutrition.

Calling the situation “avoidable,” he urged the State government to immediately initiate talks with representatives of the workers and resolve their grievances through constructive dialogue.

Ensuring fair wages and dignified retirement benefits, he said, would not only support the workers but also strengthen the State’s flagship welfare scheme.

–IANS

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