Rain has brought miseries to 2,500 workers in Shyam Nagar area, not far from the heart of the state capital.
The 11-week lockdown has rendered them jobless. Now that the lockdown is over, there is no end in sight to their sufferings.
Their hutments are in ruins. Yet, these people cannot afford to cover their roofs with a piece of polythene. Rainwater seeps through the tattered tops turning the floors of the hutments into a mud pool.
All these workers belong to Ojha-Gond tribe and Dalit community. They are struggling to keep the wolf from the door. A few of them, however, live in concrete structures called 'Multi.'
Paucity of water in hutment has forced eight-year-old Poonam to lumber several kilometers daily with a pail on her head. Hunger has compelled four-year-old Janhavi to begging with her 85-year-old grandmother.
Their pathos does not end here. Without clothes and sanitary napkins, Sona faces problems during menstruation. She told Free Press she and her family members cannot sleep on the floor due to fear of snake.
Some of them have found jobs. Yet, their number is less. No different is the story of Anita Rawat. She lives in a hutment with seven members of her family. She said before the lockdown her daily earnings had been Rs 210. She is jobless now. To blunt the pangs of hunger, she and her mother-in-law have to beg. At times her family survives only on water.
Another woman Gyarsi Rawat lives in a hutment with her husband, four children and mother-in-law. She and her husband worked to run the family. Now, they are without a job. Many a time they hit the hay on an empty stomach, Gyarsi said.
In the same way, Jyoti Uike said they have lost earnings since the lockdown. The government has advised them to use soap to clean hands, but there is no money to buy it, Jyoti said.
Similarly, Suganti Uike, living in a Multi with her family comprising eight members, said they did not get support from the government. They need footwear and clothes, besides food, she said.
Many of them cannot go to other places for work, because public transport has yet to start. So, they wake up on an empty stomach and hit the stack half-starved.
'Disease does not mean hunger'
Kalli, a member of the Shahri Mazdoor Sangh, worked as a cleaner at a meat shop and earned Rs 50 to Rs 60 a day. She has no earnings now. Her husband has found a job. Yet, no sooner he gets the wages than he buys liquor, she said, adding that a disease does not mean that people should starve.
NGO provides aid
Savita Sohit, working for welfare of the marginalised community, said the lockdown triggered food crisis among the workers in Shyam Nagar. They hardly have a penny to buy a piece of polythene to cover their roofs. Savita, a member of an NGO (Muskaan), said the organisation had been distributing ration, garments and pieces of polythene among them.
