Two weeks into India’s initial 21-day-lockdown which has since been extended to six weeks-to prevent the spread of coronavirus, Sunita Devi, a domestic worker in Delhi’s Nilothi district, is concerned about how to feed her four daughters through the remainder of the shutdown.
Devi is one of the thousands of casual workers in Delhi who have run out of cash and are now living food provided in public schools by the Government. “We get small portions that I split between four kids. There’s scarcely enough for us all,” said Devi, a single parent.
Devi is about 560 km (350 miles) from New Delhi, from Fatehpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Two years before her husband, a driver, had died of tuberculosis. Prior to the lockdown, she earned Rs 5,500 per month ($73) for three middle-class families in Paschim Vihar to clean and cook.
About half of India’s 467 million population is self-employed. On the other hand, 36% are casual wage-laborers. Meanwhile, only 17% are daily wage-workers. Two-thirds of them work without employment. More than 90 per cent of them lack workplace social security or health benefits. The lockout of the coronavirus has complicated their survival.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared, on March 24, there would be a 21-day-lockdown. It was shutting down public transport. But, he did not say how the state will help the poor through it.
Tens of thousands of migrant workers have left the area. Many of them walking hundreds of kilometers to reach their homes. The factories and industries have been shut down as part of government action to combat the virus that has killed more than 150,000 people around the world.