Background and Context
Anganwadi centres are the field units of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), where AWWs and AWHs deliver nutrition, health and early-education services to children, pregnant and lactating women and adolescent girls. The debate over these workers' legal status is old: official replies call them "honorary" workers, and in the said case the state had stressed the honorarium, while the workers had claimed gratuity. In the Maniben Maganbhai Bhariya v. District Development Officer, Dahod judgment of 25 April 2022, the Supreme Court said in the context of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 that the Act applies to anganwadi centres, AWWs and AWHs, and also that calling the monthly amount an "honorarium" is not by itself decisive. That judgment was limited to the question of gratuity; Justice Rastogi separately also wrote that the Centre and state governments should together think out ways of better service conditions.
Why in the News
In the answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2275 (Shri N. K. Premachandran) on 31 July 2026, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Smt. Savitri Thakur listed the honorarium of AWWs and AWHs, the states' top-ups and other facilities. This article is based on that answer and its annexure; the fact-check date is 19 October 2026. The answer is dated 31 July 2026, and its positions are as of that date. This article makes no claim about any position today (October 2026) or any new increase.
Key Facts and Figures
| Details of the answer (verbatim) | Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2275, answered 31.07.2026; Ministry of Women and Child Development; questioner: Shri N. K. Premachandran; answer: Minister of State Smt. Savitri Thakur; title: "Service Conditions of AWWs". |
|---|---|
| The question's five parts | (a) proposal to raise the honorarium and improve service conditions; (b) restoration of TA for AWWs; (c) consideration of Kerala's request for restoration of TA; (d) releasing the increased honorarium "approved" in APIP 2025-2026; (e) ESIC benefits. The answer is given as a shared answer covering (a) to (e). |
| The answer's founding sentence | AWWs and AWHs are "honorary workers" who "voluntarily come forward" from the local community and receive an honorarium; as per the answer, "this honorarium is increased from time to time". |
| Central honorarium | As per the answer, from 1 October 2018 the Government of India raised the AWW honorarium from Rs.3,000 to Rs.4,500 per month and the AWH honorarium from Rs.1,500 to Rs.2,250 per month, in a "defined cost-sharing ratio between the Centre and the states/UTs". |
| States' top-ups | States/UTs give additional incentives and top-ups "from their own resources", which "differ state by state"; details in the annexure (36 entries). |
| Performance-based incentive | Rs.500 per month for the AWW and Rs.250 per month for the AWH. |
| Technology | Smartphones for AWWs under Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0; the Poshan Tracker (mobile app) has digitised the physical registers. |
|---|---|
| Promotion | 50% of AWW posts are to be filled from AWHs with 5 years' experience and 50% of supervisor posts by promotion of AWWs with 5 years' experience, "subject to fulfilling other criteria". |
| Leave | 20 days' annual leave; 180 days' paid maternity leave; on abortion/miscarriage, paid leave of "45 days once" (the answer's words: "once for 45 days"). |
| Pension, insurance and health | PM-SYM: a "request to encourage" states/UTs to enrol eligible AWWs/AWHs (the scheme is voluntary and contributory). PMJJBY: life insurance of Rs.2 lakh, ages 18 to 50. PMSBY: Rs.2 lakh on death in an accident or permanent total disability, Rs.1 lakh on partial permanent disability, ages 18-59 (the answer's age limit kept as printed). AB-PMJAY: an annual health cover of Rs.5 lakh for all AWWs and AWHs, "in pursuance of the budget announcement of FY 2024-25". |
| Retirement date | States/UTs have been "requested" to adopt a uniform retirement date of 30 April each year. |
| Nature of the scheme | Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 is a centrally sponsored scheme: policy and planning are the Centre's responsibility, day-to-day implementation is the responsibility of the states/UTs. |
| What the answer does not directly say | The answer has no separate sentences on part (b) restoration of TA, (c) Kerala's request, (d) the "approved" increased honorarium in APIP 2025-2026 and (e) ESIC. This is "not directly addressed in the answer", not a denial. |
Annexure: Our Calculation
The annexure has 36 states/UTs. Among them, the entries for Goa and Tripura are printed as ranges and Nagaland's as "NIL". The remaining 33 entries carry single figures (our calculation). In these 33, the AWW top-up runs from Rs.600 (Jammu and Kashmir) to Rs.10,250 (Haryana) and the median is Rs.5,500; the AWH top-up runs from Rs.300 to Rs.6,800. In 22 of the 33 states/UTs, the AWW top-up is Rs.4,500 or more; 4,500 is the central honorarium figure - here the comparison is only of figures, not of the total amount (our calculation). In 12 of the 33, the AWH top-up is exactly half the AWW top-up. In Puducherry and West Bengal the AWH top-up is printed higher than the AWW's and in Arunachal Pradesh equal (our observation). The annexure does not separately print the period of the amounts (monthly etc.), so do not read them as "per month". Tripura's ranges are printed in the annexure in descending order ("5,946-3,500"); we have kept them exactly as printed. The annexure also does not say whether the top-up goes to all workers or to some categories.
| State/Union Territory | Additional top-up to AWW (Rs.) | Additional top-up to AWH (Rs.) |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 7,500 | 5,750 |
| 2. Andhra Pradesh | 7,000 | 4,750 |
| 3. Arunachal Pradesh | 3,000 | 3,000 |
| 4. Assam | 3,500 | 1,750 |
| 5. Bihar | 4,500 | 2,250 |
| 6. Chandigarh | 3,600 | 1,800 |
| 7. Chhattisgarh | 5,500 | 2,750 |
| 8. Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu | 3,500 | 1,750 |
| 9. Delhi | 6,720 | 3,360 |
| 10. Goa | 15,000 - 23,000 | 8,500 - 11,500 |
| 11. Gujarat | 5,500 | 3,250 |
| 12. Haryana | 10,250 | 5,650 |
| 13. Himachal Pradesh | 6,000 | 3,550 |
| 14. Jammu and Kashmir | 600 | 300 |
| 15. Jharkhand | 7,000 | 3,500 |
| 16. Karnataka | 8,000 | 5,250 |
| 17. Kerala | 8,300 | 6,800 |
| 18. Ladakh | 1,300 | 650 |
| 19. Lakshadweep | 5,500 | 4,750 |
| 20. Madhya Pradesh | 8,500 | 4,250 |
| 21. Maharashtra | 8,500 | 5,250 |
| 22. Manipur | 1,000 | 600 |
| 23. Meghalaya | 3,000 | 1,000 |
| 24. Mizoram | 950 | 725 |
| 25. Nagaland | NIL | NIL |
| State/Union Territory | Additional top-up to AWW (Rs.) | Additional top-up to AWH (Rs.) |
|---|---|---|
| 26. Odisha | 5,500 | 2,750 |
| 27. Puducherry | 1,950 | 2,125 |
| 28. Punjab | 5,000 | 2,850 |
| 29. Rajasthan | 6,061 | 4,041 |
| 30. Sikkim | 7,000 | 4,500 |
| 31. Tamil Nadu | 9,780 | 6,270 |
| 32. Telangana | 9,150 | 5,550 |
| 33. Tripura | 5,946-3,500 | 4,218-2,750 |
| 34. Uttar Pradesh | 1,500 | 750 |
| 35. Uttarakhand | 4,800 | 3,000 |
| 36. West Bengal | 4,500 | 4,550 |
The annexure kept as printed (the answer's names have been written in Hindi). Source: the annexure of Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2275.
Analysis: Honorarium versus Service Conditions, and the Federal Division
The answer's pivot is the "honorary" status. The answer presents the workers as "honorary" workers who join voluntarily, and places the honorarium within that frame. Alongside, it attaches several things of service conditions: promotion, leave, insurance, pension, health cover. In policy analysis two questions should be kept separate: how much the honorarium is, and how the conditions of work (leave, security, promotion) are.
The two levels of Centre and state. As per the answer, the central honorarium runs on a cost-sharing ratio, and states give top-ups from their own resources. Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 is a centrally sponsored scheme: policy and planning are the Centre's, implementation the states'. One result of this is visible in the annexure: workers resting on the same central figure have top-ups that differ widely state by state (our calculation above). Whether this difference is a result of states' fiscal capacity, political choice or conditions of work, the answer does not say, so we do not invent a reason.
The language of "request". On both pension enrolment and a uniform retirement date of 30 April, the answer says "request". In a centrally sponsored scheme, staff service conditions ultimately remain in the states' hands, so this language accords with the federal structure, but it does not follow that all states have accepted these requests; the answer contains no state-wise compliance information.
Judicial background versus the government answer. The 2022 judgment did not treat the label "honorarium" as decisive in the context of the Gratuity Act. The Lok Sabha answer makes no mention of this judgment or of gratuity. In trying to connect the two, do not write that the answer negates the court's decision - the answer contains no such statement.
Way Forward: Unanswered Questions
The following matters are not separately present in the answer, and they will be clarified only by further replies from Parliament or the ministry: (i) what happened to the restoration of TA and to Kerala's request; (ii) the answer carries neither confirmation nor denial of the question's sentence describing the increased honorarium in APIP 2025-2026 as "approved"; (iii) the position on ESIC benefits. We have made no assumption about any of these.
Exam-useful Points
Prelims: from 1 October 2018, AWW Rs.4,500 and AWH Rs.2,250 per month (as per the answer and PIB); Poshan Tracker; Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 is a centrally sponsored scheme; PM-SYM is voluntary and contributory; the "request" for a 30 April retirement date. Mains: Centre-state cost-sharing, the uneven spread of top-ups across states, the "volunteer" versus "employee" debate, and why the honorarium figure alone is not enough for service conditions. Always keep the claims written in the answer and your own interpretation separate.
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