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Future uncertain for domestic workers with unpaid salaries, mounting expenses

By Trisha Mukherjee New Delhi, Apr 27 (PTI) After years of making a dignified living, cleaning, cooking and doing a host of other jobs that make them the backbone of many an urban home, part-time domestic helps are reduced to helpless dependence, unable to go to work and waiting out the lockdown in increasing anxiety. Their employers would love to have them back but the fear of the spread of coronavirus and strict social distancing norms has meant that much of the workforce, comprising mainly women, are stopped from even entering the colony or gated community they work in. Sushila Kaushalya Devi, who lives in Madanpur Khadar, nearly 12 km from her area of work in south Delhi’s C R Park, said one of her three employers preempted the lockdown (announced on March 24) and gave her an advance to stock up on rations. “The food which would have lasted the four of us an entire month got over several days ago and there’s no money to buy more,” she said, adding that she has been unable to collect her salary from the other two employers due to the restrictions on movement. Married to a vertically challenged man who she said is “constantly refused work”, Sushila is the sole earning member of the family and struggling to make ends meet with no money coming in for at least another month. There are about 10-15 lakh women like Sushila in the Delhi-NCR region alone, estimates Maya John of the Gharelu Kamgar Union (GKU) that works with domestic helpers in Gurgaon, Noida, and parts of Rohini in Delhi. She said only a few workers were fortunate to receive an advance salary, have access to virtual payment options such as bank transfers, PayTM and Google-Pay, or able to collect their dues from the houses they work in. “We have been getting in touch with these RWAs and requesting them to provide ‘confidence building measures’ to the workers in these difficult times, by allowing the employers to pay them,” she added. Pinky, who works as a cleaning and cooking help in Noida’s Sector 39, has been trying to go and collect her salary from her employers since the first week of April but in vain. Aditi Yajnik from SEWA, which has been providing relief to the families of domestic workers in different parts of Delhi during the lockdown, said many of the women are migrants and don’t have ration cards, or even jan-dhan accounts.

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