Monday, 10 January 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
Alleging that the state government continues to be apathetic towards the Anganwadi workers despite making several big announcements ahead of the assembly elections, the president of Anganwadi Workers Association Rekha Negi has threatened that the Anganwadi workers will not get involved in any work associated with the Health department amid the rising cases of Covid-19. Negi told The Pioneer that hundreds of Anganwadi workers are yet to receive their allowance for the past several months and the government has not issued the money for the take home ration (THR) and rent of the buildings where the workers run the Anganwadi centres for about a year. She said that on one hand, the government highly publicised the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami’s announcement to release the deducted allowance of the Anganwadi workers among other announcements but on the other hand, the department of Women Empowerment and Child Development (WECD) is not implementing those announcements despite the order issued by the CM. She said, “The WECD officials have been giving us absurd reasons like they will adjust our deducted allowance in our casual leaves. We are not given any casual leaves by the department then what will they adjust? Now the model code of conduct (MCC) will remain in effect till the elections and nothing will be done on the matter till then. We have asked the department to release the deducted amount of allowance for the work done by Anganwadi workers during the Covid-19 period but they said that that work was associated with the health department and WECD has nothing to do with it.” She added, “If there is no worth of our work done for the health department on the orders of the officials then why would we do it. If the department will not take cognisance of our matters soon, we are not going to carry out any work associated with the health department during the present Covid-19 pandemic.”
