Gujarat: With lockdown in place, domestic helpers indefinitely await wages

“After the first case was reported in Vadodara, the inflow of customers had reduced. The owner asked me to stop coming and said she will call me when required. Then the lockdown was announced; I was paid less than half my salary. The restaurant has not been running and the owner said she didn’t have money to pay the staff. My husband works at construction sites — he has also been out of work for the last two weeks. We have the entire month ahead of us and do not know what to do,” said Madi, who lives with her husband, three children and mother-in-law in a two-room apartment.

Like Madi, most women in this housing society work as domestic helps and are awaiting their wages. “We could either go and get the wages or they should come here and give it to us. But since it’s a lockdown, we do not know what to do. There is police on the road and we are scared to venture out. Most people have refused to pay us, but we would need some money to pull us at least through this month. It’s almost 10 more days to the lockdown — before we start working again — but we are unsure about that as well,” said Hetal Mackwana (23), who used to earn Rs 9,000 on a monthly basis by working as a cook at various houses. So far, she has received only Rs 3,000 from one of her employers and remains uncertain about the rest.

As the month of April began, the residents were hopeful of free ration and money being transferred in their Jan Dhan Yojana accounts. However, most of them struggled as despite being Below Poverty Line (BPL) card holders, they were not registered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and could not benefit from the scheme.

“I went to the ration shop at Kalali and stood there for almost two hours before my turn came. But I was sent back because I did not have some registration…I do not know what. I haven’t purchased ration on this card since 2015,” said Diwali Madi, who also works as a domestic help in nearby societies and has not received her salary yet. A Jan Dhan account holder, she added, “I had heard that some amount will be transferred to the account, but we do not know much about it. As of today, no money has been transferred. It will be a great relief for us if they do so.”

Small provision stores inside the society are also struggling to stock their supplies. “We would generally bring our supplies from bigger provision stores or supermarkets, but the supplies are hit everywhere. Now, I have started noting what people want and venture out and bring the items accordingly for them,” Nitin Raval, owner of one of the provision stores.

With little or no money in hand for at least the next ten days, the silver lining for the residents in the otherwise bleak times has been a few samartians distributing free food packets over the last few days. President of the society, Anil Chavda said, “There are around 10,000 people here, some of them with big families and no work at all. So, some people come over to distribute food once a day and we allow them to do so. A lot of children queue up for the free food, at least they are fed.”