VIJAYAWADA: Former chief minister and YSRCP president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has slammed the coalition government for endangering the livelihood of nearly 85,000 women engaged in cooking mid-day meals in government schools.
Speaking at Platform X on Saturday, he stated that the government is using the proposed ‘Smart Kitchens’ initiative as a pretext to benefit its own supporters while pushing thousands of women workers, many of whom have served for more than two decades, into insecurity and unemployment.
Jagan pointed out that the government has also failed to pay salaries to these workers for the past two months, further exacerbating their financial woes. He recalled that when the YSRCP assumed office, the honorarium for mid-day food workers was increased from Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000 per month and stated that the present government had promised to do even more for them before the elections.
Instead, he said, it is now trying to remove them under the guise of the Smart Kitchen policy, leaving thousands of women without a livelihood. Jagan reiterated that the YSRCP will stand firm with the mid-day meal workers and fight on their behalf.
He demanded the immediate release of the two-month pending salaries and asked the government to honor its election promise.
