Households wary, but start letting in helps

KOLKATA: Domestic helps were back at work at a number of households from Monday. It was the first day of the third phase of the nationwide lockdown that relaxed norms for maids who live near their employers’ houses that are not within containment zones.However, even as several stand-alone houses allowed domestic helps, almost all major residential housing complexes in the city refused entry to the maids after detailed governing body meetings between Saturday and Sunday.“Initially, we were hoping to bring in the maids after the end of the lockdown, but looking at the steady rise in the number of persons affected with the disease in the last few weeks, we have decided not to allow any part-time maids from outside to work within the complex as of now,” said Sunil Agarwal, a resident of South City.Several other housing complexes in the city, including Upohar condominium, Fort Oasis and Power Tower in New Town have also refused entry to part-time helps. While some complexes, such as Urbana, have allowed entry of drivers till the parking area and has also residents to bring in permanent maids, others — such as Silver Spring — allowed resident maids employed with one flat owner to work at other flats if the maid is willing and the original flat owner permits the same.Many families with senior citizens and toddlers said that they were having a tough time without maids as they also had office work.Behala Sakherbazar resident Somnath Das was among those who asked both his maids to join work from Monday. “For the past six weeks, my wife and I had to do all the household chores. Both of us are in our late 70s and it is impossible for us to do everything by ourselves and we had been practically surviving on daal-bhaat these days,” said Das, a former state government official whose children live abroad.While several families had paid the salary to the maids for the month of March, most didn’t pay them for April. “I worked at six houses but now only two of them have asked me to join. Four families, haven’t paid for April and have also asked me not to come,” said Sandhya Das, a domestic help and resident of Thakurpukur.