BJP vs Left Front #1: What’s the Record For Anganwadi Workers?

In the first ever electoral battle of its kind, the BJP is pitted against the Left Front in Tripura. While the Left Front’s history in the tiny North-Eastern state goes back to pre-Independence days, the BJP has emerged as a challenger for the first time only because several Congress and Trinamool Congress leaders joined the party last year, and it struck an alliance with the separatist tribal outfit called Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT). The BJP is claiming that it will bring better governance to the state while the Left Front is banking upon its work since it came to power in Tripura 25 years ago.

The best way to check the claims and counter claims is to compare the record of the Left Front govt. and various BJP govts. in the country.

Here is a look at the wages paid to anganwadi workers and helpers across several states. Anganwadis are centres where children up to the age of six years and pregnant and feeding mothers are given nutritional supplement under the world’s largest such programme called ICDS.

Tripura’s Left Front govt., like other state govts., provides additional honoraria to these workers and helpers because they can’t possibly survive on the paltry amounts given by the central govt. Compared to the BJP ruled states, Tripura’s monthly wages for workers and helpers of anganwadis are the highest at Rs.5865 and Rs.3424 respectively.

The Central govt. provides a wage of Rs.3000 per month to ‘workers’ and Rs.1500 to ‘helpers’ on a sharing basis with the state govts. These workers have been struggling for years to be recognized as regular workers with better wages and benefits but the central govt. has been refusing to accept their demands and continues to classify them as ‘voluntary workers’ to be paid only an ‘honorarium’. The Modi govt. had promised to look at their demands sympathetically but even after four years in power it is following on the footsteps of the previous Congress govts.

In Gujarat which has been under BJP rule for nearly two decades, workers get Rs.4750 while helpers get Rs.2400 only per month. Or take Madhya Pradesh with nearly 15 years of continuous BJP rule: workers get Rs.5000 and helpers Rs.2500 per month.

In states with large tribal populations like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, their BJP state govts. pay almost 20-30% less honoraria to anganwadi workers and helpers compared to Tripura.

This starving of anganwadi workers/helpers is not just an issue of good wages. These workers are providing a key service to the people especially in remote tribal areas. Better nutrition for babies and mothers helps maintain better health for them. This is a key consideration and hence the personnel who deliver these services need to be paid sufficiently to devote their full time to the effort. It is this vision – of service to the people – that motivates the Tripura govt.’s policy of paying them well.

And it is the lack of this vision – the indifference towards people, especially tribal communities – that seems to be paralyzing the BJP’s state govts.