Mumbai: Migrant workers, daily wage earners, tradesmen on edge

MUMBAI: Firoze Khan, a coolie at Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, has a bigger burden over his head these days than the bulky bags he is used to carrying. The 42-year-old has not sent any money to his ailing parents, wife, who works as a farm labourer, and three children in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, since February.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement on Tuesday extending the lockdown till May 3 to check the spread of Covid-19, Khan wonders how he or his family will cope as he counts on his fingertips the number of days to go now.
“I have not earned a single rupee since March 23,” he says. “It will be about 40 days without any income till May
3. My family heavily depends on me. Last time I sent them money was with a relative in February.”
Khan lives in a slum with seven others, some of whom are coolies, some working as loaders. He said they had basic ration that would last them 10 days.
“On most days we queue up to get food when some group is distributing near Kurla station,” he says. “We are still better off in Mumbai; someone or the other will give food. But my family is having a difficult time back home.”
If the first, 21-day national lockdown was hard on daily wage earners and migrant labourers, they say the extension will make it difficult to keep body and soul together.
Television and film shoots were discontinued almost a month ago and daily wage earners from the industry are left without pay since. Azim Sheikh, a spot boy on a reality show set who lives in Malwani, has to support three children and his wife but has not had work since March 17.
“My parents live in our hometown in Uttar Pradesh while I live here along with my family, which also includes two brothers who have corner shops selling snacks,” he says. “Their income also stopped a few days later. When shoots stopped on March 17, we were paid and I used up the money to buy home supplies for a couple of weeks. We are rationing as much as possible since we have children to take care of.”
Sheikh says he was contacted by various associations and groups which have collected money for cine workers but is yet to receive anything from them. He has, though, received some funds from people he personally knows in the industry.
“We have already started eating into our savings and not been able to send anything to our parents this month,” he says.
Sunil Chavan from Parel village is a plumber. He says he has not had a single call for work since the end of March.
“When the cases were few, people from the neighbourhood were not all that scared and I was getting urgent calls from housing societies,” Chavan says. “With coronavirus cases increasing in the city many societies are now not allowing outsiders into their premises.”