Updated: October 27, 2020 7:09:18 am
Measures like MNREGA, which helped in rural areas, are not feasible in cities, as there is little work that is not based on contractors, said Abhay Pethe, professor of economics at the University of Mumbai.
MANY locks in the nation’s financial capital are opening one by one, new Covid numbers are dropping, but most of the doors, or windows, to any chance of winning are still firmly closed.
For countless people in this city, the trust and dignity that ensured a monthly salary until just six months ago has gone. An army of women and men, from domestic workers to shop assistants, personnel from small manufacturing and service units to delivery personnel and drivers, have been without their fixed income for seven months. Their wages were too meager for a savings cushion that is now worn out, if not gone.
These families are on the brink of urban poverty, forced to do what they once thought was impossible: borrow for their children’s school fees, fail to meet EMI, have to pay rent, reduce necessities, pawn their belongings. of value, wait for meals and dry off. rations from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), NGOs and charities.
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Like Isaque Khan (42). Since he lost his job in March as a tailor in a garment unit with a monthly salary of 15,000 rupees, he knocked on several doors when his family of seven began to depend on the prepared meals coming to Malad from charities. “I sold grapes, I sold vegetables, I tried everything I could, but it wasn’t enough. I have five children to support, ”he said.
“I sewed some leggings and palazzos at home and started selling them through pheri, door to door (in their densely populated Ambujwadi slum). With great difficulty, I earn Rs 300-400 some days, ”said Khan.
Santosh Sathe (34) from Mankhurd, the eastern border of the city, who studied until the third year of a Bachelor of Arts, worked in a shopping center in Navi Mumbai and was paid half his monthly salary, 6,250 rupees, for two months of confinement. The shopping centers opened in August, but he was asked not to return. “They hired only one in seven employees who said there was no business,” Santosh said.
Every day he tries to find a job as a “helper” for 500 rupees a day. “There is no guarantee that you will find a job on a daily basis,” he said.
One of his brothers is an autorickshaw driver, whose earnings have also fallen; another brother works in the office of a political party and another is unemployed.
Anita, Santosh’s sister-in-law, says she installed a sewing machine a year ago to increase family income. “That machine was off for a few months during the shutdown. Now, very few women come to buy dresses or blouses. There is no extra money to spend on these things, ”Anita said. Her two sons, ages 5 and 11, find it difficult to manage online classes on the only smartphone they have to share.
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Few have a better first-hand sense of distress than Kishan Singh Rajput, a gold shop owner in the Janu Pada slum of Kandivali East; that’s your business.
He said he sits on Rs 70 lakh worth of gold jewelry pawned with him for cash since closing – up to 300 people have mortgaged his bracelets, chains, earrings and even Mangalsutras.
“They receive cash in exchange that they will repay at 2 percent interest each month. Some said they wanted to pay the rent, others had a hospital bill, others had to pay their children’s school tuition. They are all helpless, ”said Rajput.
Among the 300 names on his record is Prathamesh Khandekar (22), who worked as a driver at a private car rental agency before closing and brought home a salary of Rs 18,000 a month.
The confinement took away his job and cut his father’s salary from a modest government job in half. The expenses increased when his father suffered pneumonia in April. “We ran out of savings after medical expenses. Then I sold two gold chains and mortgaged my mother’s Mangalsutra. Raise Rs 8,000 selling the two chains. We hope it will help us get on until you find another job. I have tried very hard, ”Khandekar said.
Khandekar is among the many seeking low-collateral credit, which is beyond the reach of any government credit scheme. “People who had suitable jobs have been out of work for months. Some of them have no choice but to borrow from private moneylenders when they are not getting bank loans, ”said Bilal Khan of Ghar Bachao, Ghar Banao Andolan, who works for the right to housing in slums. He said some slum loan sharks who previously charged 5 percent interest have raised their interest rates to 10 percent and, in some places, to a brutal 20 percent.
Vanita Pawar (40), a domestic worker on Khairani Road near Saki Naka, had a monthly income of Rs 9,000 from three households where she worked before closing. She had borrowed more than Rs 5 lakh from a credit society and friends and had carved out a room and a mezzanine in her one-room house. She would rent the space to three tenants at a time, charging a deposit of Rs 20,000 and a monthly rent of Rs 4,000.
“I did all of this after my husband died six years ago in order to pay for my children’s education,” she said. After closing, he lost his job at all three houses and has had no tenants.
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Your son, who is taking a B. Sc (TI) course at a private institute, may now have to skip a year. “I got 5,000 rupees to pay for my daughter’s college tuition. My son’s senior year rate is Rs 40,000. I just can’t pay, ”he said.
Your pile of defaults is increasing. “I have not been able to pay the electricity bill for six months. I have not been able to make the 5,000 rupees monthly loan repayment. I get calls from all over the world asking for their fees, but I tell them where I’m supposed to get them from. People like us need to be accommodated a bit more until we get some work, ”he said.
His eldest daughter, who gave tuition to schoolchildren, is also out of work. “The parents of the students don’t have money to pay my daughter,” he said.
Photos of Babasaheb Ambedkar and Gautam Buddha hang on the wall in front of the door of Pawar’s home that includes a small kitchen, slim attached bathroom, refrigerator, wall-mounted TV, and single bed. The Pawar have recovered in recent months with dry rations from the NGO Jan Samrajya.
According to an analysis by the state Department of Finance released earlier this month, the statewide unemployment rate soared to 20.9 in April from 5.8 in March. In August, after unlocking, it stood at 6.2, but experts said that doesn’t take into account large sections of the informal sector where payment of wages was made in cash.
In fact, an 11-member expert group set up by the state government to recommend economic reactivation measures in response to COVID-19, called for “direct” support to “vulnerable groups” through a “web-based social program. implemented using Aadhar, PDS … And municipal databases ”.
Recognizing the long way to go, a senior official said: “After Chhattisgarh, none of the states came up with schemes for cash disbursement because the economy is inflationary. What is thought now is that it is better to provide food security through rations ”.
That may not be enough. Measures like the MNREGA, which helped in rural areas, are not feasible in cities, as there is little work that is not based on contractors, said Abhay Pethe, a professor of economics at the University of Mumbai.
“There should be a cash transfer to the most vulnerable. Maharashtra has enough room to borrow … Red flags arise when debt service exceeds a certain percentage of income inflows. We have not yet reached it. We have about 7-8 percent left. But we have to be brave about it. We can’t just wait for the central government’s aid plans and packages, ”Pethe said.
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