Ranjani Madhavan By Express News Service BENGALURU: “I have five mouths to feed, including kids. I have had no work since the shutdown and do not have any ration left at home for tomorrow. I do not have money to buy more. The last time I had meals was on Thursday. This is the scene in every household,” said Bheema Reddy, a construction worker. For the 300-odd families of construction workers living in a slum on Old Madras Road, Nagavarapalya, COVID-19 is not a cause of anxiety. They have bigger problems --- dwindling savings and food. Without work since the lockdown, their hand-to-mouth existence has been adversely impacted. They are all desperately waiting for arrangement of transport back to their villages, where at least they can borrow money and get food from their neighbours and relatives. Around 30 per cent of the workers managed to leave in Tempo Travellers to their homes in Yadgir, Kalaburagi and Raichur. “If we get vehicles, we will go home. There, we have land. Those who don’t have land will take a loan. Who can we borrow from here? We don’t know anyone. People share rations in our village,” Bheema Reddy said, adding that they left the village due to prolonged dry spells leading to crop failure. “We were unable to survive in our village and now we are unable to survive here due to the coronavirus,” he added. Sharnappa from Kalaburagi has a similar tale. “I moved to Bengaluru 20 years ago to do construction work. It has been one week since I got any work. My ration at home will last about four days. I used to earn Rs 300 a day. There are 10 people living in my house, including my brother’s and my kids.” Anywhere between 8 and 15 members stay in each hut, making ‘social distancing’ virtually impossible. The slum dwellers complained that no one from the government had come to their aid. “And the police hit us for crowding the roads when we step out,” they said. Several slum dwellers TNIE spoke to shared the same story, about food supplies hitting a low. Water is the next worry as they have to pay Rs 1 per 15-litre can, to the landowner. “About 10-12 people live in one house, where Rs 2,000 is spent on water per month. This is to be used for washing, cooking and bathing. Once we run out of money, how will we buy water?” asked Ramachandra (name changed on request), a student who lives in a hut with 14 other people and only two earning members. Only 20 per cent of the people here have ration cards as they keep migrating in and out of the place every few months. Even those who have access to government ration shops say it is not enough as there are 10 dependents and only two earning members on an average in each family. Though the government promised delivery of the school mid-day meals to people’s homes during the lockdown, no children here have received it. The rent per 10-15 wide hut is Rs 1,000-Rs 2,000. Mangalamma, an old woman, said, “I used to work in a hotel, washing vessels until the lockdown. I have some rice left at home. I have three people living in my home. The rice may last about five days We are not rich to store ration for a whole month. It is very difficult for us. When an NGO came to feed us, we went to the van but the police shooed us away for crowding the place.” POOR SANITATION PUTS THEM AT RISK Ramachandra said, “We don’t have toilets due to which diseases spread. How can we ask people not to defecate in the open when there are no toilets? They talk of social distancing and Swacch Bharat, but here we live in congested clusters. Private clinics nearby are shut due to the lockdown, even though CM Yediyurappa asked them to stay open. My four-year-old niece is sick and we could not take her to the government hospital, as it is far off and there is no transport or money for it.” The slum dwellers want the government to provide them with 10-15 vehicles to ferry them back home and food to get by until then. Shantamma, a woman who came from Yadgir only a week ago to earn money, did not expect the announcement of a lockdown. She, like many other women who either work as maids in homes or construction workers feel trapped, without a way out. Meanwhile, in all this time, not a single government official has come to the slum to raise awareness for prevention of COVID-19.

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