Who will feed UP's mid-day meal cooks? They have not been paid since March

Over 90% of them are women who are too poor to afford even a single meal

“We never forget to put food in students' plates but the government never remembers to do the same for us,” says Kiran Devi as she picks up a bowl of potato-soya curry to feed the students sitting under a banyan tree in Barara’s Primary School-1, Agra. Kiran Devi, 55, is a cook-cum-helper (CCH) under the mid-day meal scheme (now, Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman).

“It was March when I last received any honorarium,” she says. “We are called <bhojan matas> (mothers who provide food) but we have no money to feed ourselves.” The promise of Rs 1,000 as honorarium