Maharashtra anganwadi workers’ strike: 46 days of asking for more Premium

Thousands of women in Maharashtra march to demand better treatment, benefits, and timely payment as anganwadi workers.

On New Year’s Day, when holiday-goers from Mumbai lazily headed back into the city, thousands of women across Maharashtra, many clad in pink saris and salwar kameez, packed their bags to march to the State capital. Two days later, they met their fellow anganwadi workers, who have been staging a protest at Azad Maidan since December 4, 2023. Their demands include being treated on a par with government employees with respect to receiving benefits such as gratuity and pension. They are also seeking timely payment and new mobile phones on which their work depends.

“What is there to be happy about this new year when our basic human rights have been ignored for years? We are treated as insignificant and kept in deprivation by every government in power,” says Sheikh Razia, 60, who travelled about 400 km by bus from Georai taluka in Beed district. She reached the protest site with a small cloth duffel bag with two sets of clothes. The bhakri (millet roti) and mango pickle that most women brought along lasted only for two days. They spread their sheets out at night to sleep on the maidan. Eventually, the toilets malfunctioned.

Maharashtra’s anganwadi workers and helpers — there is one each at every centre — have been on strike for 46 days now. They have been demanding basic nutrition for 65 lakh children, whose per-day food cost for two meals has been ₹8 a child since 2014. They want the food cost for malnourished children to be raised to ₹24 a day and for the rest of the children to be set at ₹16. They demand that rent for centres be at least ₹5,000-₹8,000 in metro cities; ₹3,000-₹5,000 in towns; and ₹1,000-₹3,000 in rural areas, up from the current flat ₹750.

As of December 2023, Maharashtra has 1,10,465 anganwadi centres and 1,08,507 anganwadi workers, as per Poshan Tracker, a mobile-based application rolled out by the Ministry of Women and Child Development on March 1, 2021 for growth monitoring in children. Each anganwadi worker takes care of approximately 60 children, and seven pregnant or lactating women.

Puja Vijaykar, in her 30s, who is also from Georai taluka and came along with Razia for the protest, says she has to go door to door begging for pulses and cereals to run the anganwadi centre in her hut. “In villages, people help each other, but it is very shameful. We are only asking for a basic raise (from ₹10,000 to ₹26,000 for a worker, and ₹5,500 to ₹18,000 for a helper).” Salaries were raised last year, but payment is often delayed.

On January 12, Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers joined the strike, demanding revised salaries, on-time payment, and bonuses. While anganwadi workers work on child and maternal nutrition, ASHA workers work on the overall health of families.

When they poured out of buses and trains in Mumbai on January 3, exiting the imposing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), a UNESCO world heritage site, they crowded outside the headquarters of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) next door. Then, they walked a couple of metres to reach the triangular-shaped Azad Maidan, spread across 25 acres.