GURUGRAM: As many as 17 workers who lost their jobs when crèches for the children of migrant labourers were shut down in Gurugram last year are planning to meet deputy commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh this week.The workers have been protesting under the aegis of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), along with Anganwadi workers, for the reinstatement of their jobs and payment of pending salaries. They recently met Hema Sharma, director (women and child development) over the issue. “We will take it into consideration if the deputy commissioner sends a proposal for revival of these crèches,” Sharma told TOI.Out of the 300 crèches in the state meant for the children of migrant labourers, 200 have been closed down in the past one year by the department of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). In Gurugram, ICDS shut down a total of 17 crèches in September 2017.Speaking about the closure, Sunaina Khatri, ICDS project officer, said: “The 17 crèches were shut down after a survey found that they were not functioning properly. The workers of these crèches had also refused to carry out responsibilities such as conducting immunisation programmes and maintaining records, and had willingly resigned.”According to CITU general secretary Satvir Singh, the shutdown has not only rendered children of lakhs of migrant labourers working at constructions sites across Gurugram unsafe at these sites and put their mothers under strain to look after them, but also left the workers who managed the crèches jobless.Kusum Lata Sharma, who used to work at a crèche in Bhingarkhadi village, said, “We were forced to resign by ICDS officials, who threatened us that our pending salaries wouldn’t be paid if we resisted. But we haven’t been paid our salaries for six months, though we resigned almost a year ago.”Puja Rani, who works at a crèche in Rohtak and is a member of Crèche Workers and Helpers Union, said: “Our salaries were pending since since January 2017, when ICDS took over crèches, but we got paid only in December. They have closed down many crèches across several districts citing budget constraints. But the crèche system, which started in 1968 as ‘Balvadi’, is the most successful childcare system for children between the ages of one month to one year. We are making all possible efforts to convince the women and child development department to revive all the closed crèches in the state.”

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