By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, April 7: The Meghalaya Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union (MAWHU) has urged the state government to raise the monthly honorarium of Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) and Anganwadi Helpers (AWHs).
In a memorandum submitted to Social Welfare Minister Paul Lyngdoh, MAWHU general secretary Diangtima Lyngdoh demanded that the monthly honorarium of AWWs and AWHs be raised to Rs 26,000 and Rs 21,000 respectively, considering the “invaluable” services being rendered by them and inflation.
Further, she urged the government to introduce one-time lump sum financial assistance on retirement or death. She pointed out that in Maharashtra, AWWs and AWHs receive one-time payment of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 75,000 respectively on retirement or death.
Diangtima stressed that the government should include at least two members of MAWHU in the Meghalaya Social Welfare Recruitment Board.
Meanwhile, she complained that the AWWs face problems while updating the Face Recognition System (FRS) and eKYC on the Poshan Tracker App twice a month, as some Aadhaar-linked beneficiaries shift to other villages or do not have a valid phone number to receive OTP or are reluctant to come to the AWC for the formality.
“We would like to urge the central government to do the FRS and e-KYC only once to verify the beneficiaries and exempt (them) from doing it every month in order to ease the workload of the AWWs. There will be no problem if we mark the presence of the beneficiaries every day without FRS and e-KYC on the App,” Diangtima said.
According to her, regular filling of form in the Poshan Trader App was not done by the AWWs on time because of server problem. She said there are network issues, especially in rural areas.
She further stated that blaming the AWWs always is not acceptable. The union requested the department to solve this issue as and when it receives a complaint.
Referring to the joint meeting with the department held on June 3, 2024, Lyngdoh said the union had come to a conclusion that Samsung 5G smartphones would be distributed.
She said the AWWs have been assigned double duties, managing information on mobile phones and updating the registers on a daily and monthly basis.
She requested the state government to maintain only the important registers like family survey, food stock, weight records, home visit, records of community-based events, immunisation records and PM/NM records to ease the burden of their work.