‘Hope for higher wages and retirement benefits’
The pandemic gutted India’s economy and hurt millions of workers, artists, professionals, and homemakers. Ahead of the Union budget, HT speaks to a cross-section of people to document their hopes and wishes from the exercise
For all the work we put in, the pay is even less than a daily wage labourer. We are supposed to work as long as our body permits SALEEMA BIBI,
BHUBANESWAR: Before the pandemic, Saleema Bibi worked eight hours a day.
Her day began at 6am in her tworoom tenement in Bhubaneswar’s Azad Nagar slum. She cooked for her three children and husband before setting out for her daily rounds of the cramped neighbourhood, home to 2,300 people.
As an Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) worker, Bibi went door-to-door to check on those who may have missed on immunisation, conduct check-ups, counsel women on birth preparedness and breastfeeding, and advise poor families on prevention of infections. Covid-19 doubled her workload. Now, she visits homes of infected people in personal protective equipment kits to ensure no one jumps quarantine, and that relatives of the patients are not sick. “I visit the homes of infected persons on a daily basis; I self-isolated myself by sleeping outside my home for months,” she said.
Earlier, her workday would end at 6pm. But as the virus spread in Bhubaneswar, which has reported 31,769 cases and 244 deaths, her hours stretched well into the night. “Sometimes, I was called at 2 in the night,” Bibi said. In all, she performed 56 different kinds of work.
The 40-year-old is among 870,000 workers who formed the backbone of India’s response to the infection, especially in low-income neighbourhoods and hinterland regions, and who also make up the bulk of frontline vaccinators.
Bibi was an ASHA worker for a decade before Covid-19, but is clear that 2020 was the toughest year for her – not just because of her professional commitments but also personal challenges.
She gets a fixed honorarium of Rs 4,000 a month, and the rest of her income is variable, and depends on her performance on work such as maintaining health registers, motivating women to give birth in hospitals, bringing children to immunisation clinics, treating basic illness, keeping demographic
ASHA worker
records and improving sanitation.
With the virus gutting her family’s income, it fell on Bibi to support her family.
“My younger son who worked as Ola driver had to sit idle while the older one who worked as an interior decorator did not get any work. My husband has been sitting at home after suffering an accident three years ago,” Bibi said. “I was deep in debt due to my husband’s hospitalisation when Covid struck and it turned my home finances topsy-turvy,” she added.
But her financial challenges motivated her to focus on work, especially after the government declared ASHA workers as Covid warriors. In July, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik announced that each ASHA worker’s family would get Rs 50 lakh in case of death due to Covid and a monthly pension of Rs 5,000.
But this is not enough, believes Bibi, because ASHA workers don’t get a fixed wage or other entitlements like minimum wage or leaves. ASHA and anganwadi workers across the country struck work for two days in August on a roster of similar demands.
From the Union budget, Bibi wants the Centre to give her a fixed pay of at least Rs 8,000 per month and more incentives. “For all the work we put in, the pay is even less than a daily wage labourer. We don’t have a retirement age and are supposed to work as long as our body permits. I would urge the government to have a retirement age for us as well as monthly pension of Rs 3,000-4,000,” she said.