Noida: Most of the labourers who went back home during the Covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdown have returned to the National Capital Region (NCR) in search of livelihood. But the job market is not the same as pre-Covid times. Our team met a few migrant labourers at the Labour Chowk at the Noida-Ghaziabad border. Most of them had been waiting for a customer for several hours.

Many of these men used to work at construction sites before Covid-19 hit their jobs. But now earning regular income has become an impossible task. On some days, they wait all day long in sun and in shame, only to go back to their rented accommodations without earning a single penny. “There is not much to do now. During the lockdown, I went back to my hometown in Sitamarhi, Bihar. As the lockdown was eased, I decided to return to a rented accommodation in the Khoda area with some friends and relatives in search of a job. It has been a couple of months since we have returned, but now it’s hard to find a job," said Harihar Yadav, a daily wager who was waiting at Labour Chowk.

Like Harihar, many others who hailed from eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal were spotted waiting for any possible job for the day to meet their expenses. Many of these, however, didn’t bring their families back. “It has now become impossible to earn enough money to take care of the entire family. The jobs are rare as few people turn up at Labour Chowk to find a mason, plumber or labourer. We don’t have any other option, so we are here for our survival,” said Mohammad Imran, a labourer who hails from Katihar in Bihar.

At the labourer camps near the under-construction high-rise apartments at Greater Noida, most of the labourers who had left for their hometowns during the lockdown, have returned. But the opportunities are limited here as well. During the pre-Covid times, a daily wages labourer was earning somewhere around Rs 550 every day. Now, they claim that they are getting merely Rs 450 a day due to lesser jobs and a large pool of unemployed labourers.

“The contractor says he doesn’t have enough jobs. Whatever available is at lesser rates and also not for the entire month. We are getting just enough money to survive,” said Mohammad Babul, a daily wager at a labourer camp at Greater Noida West who hails from West Bengal. Not only labourer, skilled workers who have returned post-lockdown, are also running pillar to post to get a job.

Painter Chillu Mohammad lives in a rented accommodation at a labourer’s camp in Greater Noida. India Today image
“I am a painter. There was a time before lockdown when I used to earn Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 a month. But now, it is hard to earn even Rs 10,000 as the construction work has not resumed properly. We don’t know for how long we will survive like this,” said Chillu Mohammad.

The realtors claim that most of the labourers are back, but the industry is facing a liquidity crisis. "It is estimated that approximately 5 lakh labourers are working in Delhi-NCR projects currently whereas, during the lockdown, the number of labourers was negligible," said RK Arora, president, Naredco, UP and chairman, Supertech Group. Arora added that developers were facing the problem of liquidity in under-construction projects and have sought last-mile funding to restart them.

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