PATNA, Aug. 2 -- In yet another pre-election sop, chief minister Nitish Kumar on Friday announced that his government has decided to double the honorarium to cooks preparing mid-day meal for students in the government schools, night guards working in the secondary and higher secondary schools, physical education and health instructors. The honorarium of cooks will be increased from Rs.1,650 to Rs.3,300, while that of night guards will be hiked from Rs.5,000 to Rs.10,000, he announced on X early morning. Similarly, the honorarium of physical education and health instructors has also been increased from Rs.8,000 to Rs.16,000 and annual increment has been increased from Rs.200 to Rs.400. "This has been done to boost their morale for greater efficiency and sincerity in their work, as they play vital role in the education system," he said, adding since 2005, when the NDA government was formed, the government has been consistently working for improvement in education system. He said that while the total education Budgetary in 2005 was just Rs.4,366-crore, it has now reached to Rs.77,690-crore, with large-scale recruitment of teachers and construction of new schools and basic infrastructure to bring about significant improvement in education. This has been an old demand and it would benefit thousands of persons employed as cooks and night guards. Bihar has over .23 million cooks and helpers employed in schools for carrying out the mammoth exercise of ensuring MDM to over one crore children. Before 2019, the honorarium for cooks was just Rs.1,250, but it was increased to Rs.1,650 in two phases. The cooks are deployed as per the students' strength for the flagship MDM programme. The night guards are also deployed in thousands of secondary and higher secondary schools for providing security to gadgets like computers, Smart TV, battery and other equipment, as theft cases were reported at many places in the past. The physical education and health instructors have also been demanding hike in their salary for a long time and had also organised agitation in June in support of their demands. The increase in their honorarium, which will benefit thousands, will align with the government's focus on encouraging sports and youth activities in the state. From April 1, the Bihar government had fixed minimum per day wage for unskilled labourer at Rs.424, semi-skilled at Rs.440, skilled at Rs.536 and fully skilled at Rs.654. The CM has been made a slew of announcements in the last few months to virtually snatch every agenda of the Opposition - be it in terms of employment generation, salary, honorarium or pension hike to cover all sections of the society. He had earlier announced nearly three-fold increase in old-age pension, 1.5 times increase in monthly allowance for all panchayat representatives - including mukhiyas, deputy mukhiyas, ward members, sarpanches and panchs, increased financial autonomy to local bodies, large-scale recruitment, etc....