Visually challenged in Thane badly hit during pandemic

THANE: Pinky Gavit, 29, a visually-challenged resident of Vangani, was in her seventh month of pregnancy when the lockdown set in last year. She sold small trinkets on local trains with her husband before the pandemic and the couple made enough for survival.

However, three months into lockdown, when she delivered a baby, the couple could hardly manage one square meal a day. With the suspension of local trains, the couple had no job and her husband had to eat just once in two days to ensure she and the baby had enough.

Like Gavit, hundreds of visually-challenged residents of Thane barely managed to make ends meet since the pandemic set in. According to National Association For the Blind (NAB) India, in Thane district, 75% of the visually-challenged population are below the poverty line. Most of those in the cities have settled in Vangani and Ambernath areas due to low rentals. More than 200 families here are without a job in the pandemic.

Gavit said, “People were wary of us as all our functioning is through physical contact, so many believe we are a potential source of the spread of Covid. When I was in labour, no one helped us to reach the hospital and I had to walk for two kilometres when finally the cops helped us. We do get help from NGOs but it is insufficient for survival.”

Deputy director of the employment department of NAB, Arvind Narvekar, said, “More than 75% of the visuallychallenged population are poor. They depend on hawking on trains and streets or are daily wagers. Not all of them could be educated, so when the trains were stopped in the lockdown, these people found it difficult to survive. They are still not allowed to take the train as not all of them are fully vaccinated.”

Narvekar claimed that those who worked in factories or private establishments too lost jobs as most people believed the visually-challenged might not be able to maintain low contact at work places.

Many residing in Thane have migrated from their villages in search of a job. However, they are barely managing the rent.

A NAB volunteer working in Thane said, “People do not even help them cross roads with all the misconceptions in the early pandemic. They had to struggle through every day, they had no money to buy smart phones for the children or to pay electricity bills. The money from government schemes too got delayed.”

Sandip Bilewar, 23, a physiotherapist from Ambernath, is partially blind and got a job as a physiotherapist before the lockdown in a Ghatkopar-based hospital. However, he lost it during the lockdown and is going from pillar to post in search of a job.

“I am staying in a hostel in Ambernath. I have approached many hospitals and the government for a job. However, no one is ready to give me an opportunity. I used to visit houses of people but now no one trusts us. I sent request letters to health ministers, MLAs, MPs to hire me at any Covid hospital but no one helped. Now, I am practicing my physiotherapy on my friends and some blind families.”

Sandip Bilewar (right), a visually challenged physiotherapist, working on his patient in Ambernath.