Ragpickers struggle to make ends meet during lockdown
MUMBAI: Usha Bant, 38, earned a living by collecting segregated dry waste from hotels and restaurants in Santacruz. But in the last three months, her livelihood took a hit as the lockdown ravaged the hospitality sector. With hotels locking their doors, Bant found herself in dire straits.
From a 90% drop in daily wages, and fear of segregating contaminated mixed waste, to being barred from entering societies and landfills, ragpickers in the city have had a tough four months.
Bant’s story is no different. Prior to the lockdown, the Andheri slum resident would take the local train to Santacruz to collect waste, sell it, and earn around ₹200 per day. “From March to May, I could not earn anything. Neither was there any transport, nor waste available. I managed to segregate waste outside societies, earning ₹5 per day. NGOS helped or else I would have died of hunger,” said Bant.
Vile-parle resident Bharti Sukaya, 49, a ragpicker at MIDC Andheri for 12 years, would earn ₹150 per day to support her three children, before the lockdown.
She was forced to change her daily route after some areas were declared as containment zones. “I began following civic sanitation workers, resorting to scavenging for plastic that they missed, and making ₹5-10 per day,” she said.
Three major NGOS in the city that run 15 of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) waste segregation centres explained that the entire dry waste supply chain collapsed during the lockdown. “Segregation in Mumbai from March onwards fell to zero, with contaminated waste being discarded alongside daily garbage. This scared them, but they had no option,” said Jyoti Mhapsekar, president, Stree Mukti Sanghatana (SMS), a Dadar-based organisation that assists 3,500 women waste-pickers.
Haider Ali Sayyed, founder, Aasra Welfare Association, with 450 registered ragpickers, said the informal sector had collapsed due to lack of transportation of waste, and most of it was hoarded by local dealers.
Aasra provided 700 PPE kits, 5,500kg of ration, 13,500 food packets, and 3,700 sanitary kits to ragpickers, with support from private companies and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).