Date:29/06/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/29/stories/2007062959130400.htm

Tamil Nadu

Where women fear to work

K. Manikandan

Kitchens in noon meal centres turn into smoke chambers

— Photo: K. Manikandan

UNTOLD WOES: A cook in a noon meal centre engaged in her work.

TAMBARAM: Kitchens in noon meal centres in many government schools in the southern suburbs of Chennai have turned into ill-equipped smoke chambers where women dread to work. The noon meal programme is slated to complete its silver jubilee on July 1, but the cooks continue to work in poor conditions.

Cooks in many school kitchens complained of failing health and low wages. In the southern suburbs, there are noon meal centres in 142 schools run. Close to 30,000 students receive nutritious food here. These centres also supported old age pensioners.

Members of the Tamil Nadu Nutritious Meal Employees Association said the Government had allotted 34.5 paise per student per day and of this, 11 paise was for purchase of firewood, 15 paise for vegetables and the remaining 8.5 paise for condiments, including salt and spices. Rice, eggs, oil and green and black gram were supplied directly by the Government.

The amount allotted for firewood was low. Even the poorest quality of firewood from ‘veli kaathan’ tree cost Rs. 60 for a 20 kg measure (one ‘gundu.’) And casuarina varieties cost about Rs. 100 for 20 kg. Cooks and helpers were forced to use paper, scrap or any other low-cost material, cooks said.

Staff received poor wages and were not eligible for other benefits. After 20 years as a cook, a worker received only a little more than Rs. 2,000 a month, an office-bearer of the association said. S. Rajasekaran, Superintendent, Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine, Tambaram Sanatorium, said women who worked for long hours near firewood stoves were vulnerable to be affected by emphysema — enlargement of lungs and bronchitis — resulting in breathlessness. Members called for immediate regularisation of employees in these kitchens, better working conditions and health care.

Officials said the Department of Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme had passed a Government Order (GO No. 27) in February this year and it was planned to modernise 750 kitchens in 13 districts at a cost of Rs. 1.5 crore. Each kitchen would be modernised at a cost of Rs. 20,000 each and new facilities would include LPG stoves and new equipment.