Senior Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader and Ex VC JK Cements, Er Nazir Ahmad Yatoo on Friday said, as the country has been put in lockdown to halt the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, for many daily-wage earners this is not an option, they fear that hunger may kill them before coronavirus.
Senior PDP leader said distressing exodus stories over the last few months have been quite disturbing. Migrant workers have been stripped of their livelihoods, may or may not be getting food and shelter in the states where they are currently trapped.
“In a society with such intensely embedded socio-economic inequities, the lockdown, without adequate state support, amounts to a profound denial of the right to life with dignity for millions of people. It is not a choice between life and livelihood but a choice between life and life. Whose lives are being sacrificed or put in intense danger and who are being protected and supported is something that we as a country and the government need to ask.”
Yatoo said, the task set before all of us is to ensure that these stories of exclusion, hunger, joblessness, dislocation and indignity heaped upon millions of our people are shared. Because there’s too little reporting from most of the mainstream media.
“We often talk about labours because they’ve become the visible face of the distressed, but we need to understand that there are many categories of the poor, there are people who are now domiciled in villages and Cities, but are very poor, such as self- employed people, street vendors, drivers etc. There is no support of any kind available to them. There are people who work in micro enterprises and small businesses like eateries and small factories, people who were laid off immediately and most of them are not getting paid.
Then we have casual daily wage workers and unemployed people. And then at the very bottom are the destitute poor people, who even in the normal course, depend on some kind of charities. That’s a whole range and I am not even talking about the rural poor yet. Each of them has different kinds of challenges as they struggle since from last few months, due to coronavirus pandemic,” Yatoo said.
Yatoo further said, in such drastic times, only a segment of workers remains active, due to how indispensable their services are. From domestic helpers and housekeeping to nurses, doctors, health workers, and security guards keeping us safe, today is a day to acknowledge and be grateful for their contribution to society.
