DM Monitoring
New Delhi: Until four months ago, 19-year-old Chand Mohammad, a student of Class IX at a government school in Delhi’s Kanti Nagar, hurried to finish his classes so he could get to the shop where he worked on time. The small shop in the crowded Gandhinagar Market was about 800 square feet in size. The space was more cramped than it should have been, given that Chand worked with seven other assistants. But he needed the job. Chand has a family of seven to care for.
He is also an ambitious young man. His goal at that time was to save enough money to pay for coaching classes for his class X board examinations next year. His aim was to score enough marks to be able to take a subject combination of physics, chemistry and biology in higher secondary school. The overarching idea was to become a doctor some day.
Then Chand’s life changed. Soon after his exams ended in February, Hanifa, his mother, was diagnosed with a stone in her gall bladder as well as hyperthyroidism. While medicines would do for hyperthyroidism, the stone required surgery. Chand shifted his goalposts. He now wanted to make sure his mother got her medicines and eventually the surgery she required.
Lockdown losses
Chand took Hanifa to the government-run LNJP hospital. By then it was March and the nationwide lockdown had been announced in India due to the novel coronavirus. Hospitals were reluctant to treat out-patients. They refused to admit Hanifa too, delaying her operation indefinitely and forcing her to rely on costly medicines to kill the pain. Soon after this came another jolt. Chand Mohammad lost his job. The shop was shut for the lockdown; his employer did not answer any of his workers’ phone calls.
Chand’s father, Mohammad Momin, a daily wage worker, was too old and weak to work. His older brother, Sakib Mohammad, managed to work but his pay was meagre and sporadic, no substitute for Chand’s regular income of Rs 7,000 per month. His many trips to the shop yielded nothing. The shop remained shut. “Not only did I lose my job, I also wasn’t paid for the last month that I had worked there. I felt so helpless,” he said.
As with a large section of informal workers, Chand’s family had no savings to see them through the lockdown. With no income in sight, they reduced their food intake.
For three months, the family of seven ate only twice a day, often seeking help from others. They struggled to pay the rent for their small two-room flat in Delhi’s Kanti Nagar area. Chand, however, had been secretly looking for a job, any job, so he could sustain his household. ‘It’s frightening, but it pays well’
In June, a friend who was aware of Chand’s financial situation, told him about a well-paying job. It involved “taking care” of the victims of COVID-19 at LNJP Hospital, the same hospital where his mother had been treated. He was supposed to carefully transfer bodies from the mortuary to the hospital van and then transport them to the burial ground or crematorium as necessary. He would be paid a “handsome” salary of Rs 17,000 per month, more than double the salary he had earned at the shop.
