Hyderabad: Agonising wait for helping hands

Hyderabad: Despite all-out efforts by several NGOs engaged in supply of essentials, daily bread earners living on the outskirts of the city are still awaiting their turn.

With loss of livelihoods, their eyes are glued on the entrance of locality, hoping someone turns up with ration kits.

There are hundreds of families particularly in the southern part of city outskirts, including Shaheennagar, Errakunta, Mohammed Nagar, Sadatnagar, Pahadishareef, Jalpally, Shamshabad.

They are passing through tough times and finding it hard to sustain their lives, as they are yet to be covered under the public distribution system (PDS). Hence, their desperate wait for any of the hundreds of NGOs busy providing succour to the poor during the lockdown.

In localities like Shaheennagar and its surrounding areas, there are some 500 families crying for attention since the enforcement of lockdown. Hajera Begum, a domestic help who was asked to not come for work by her employers, now awaits eagerly outside her house.

"My husband is a daily wage labour and even he stopped earning for the family. We are left out without money and getting a square meal has turned a daily struggle now," she added.

Scores of such families do not even have ration cards and remain deprived of the ration through PDS. Nor did they receive any monetary help extended by the State government a few days ago.

Mohammed Mubashir, a scrap collector said that due to lockdown he could not go out and the family ran out of money and was struggling for food.

"We came to know that more than 250 NGOs are on the field distributing food and ration. But barely we see them in our area," he lamented.

According to a local leader, Syed Abdul Raoof, there are more than 500 houses in Wadi-e-Saleheen in Shaheennagar and its surrounding areas, including some 100 migrants from Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The people mainly are daily wage workers who ride riskshaws, rented autos, work at various businesses or eke out living as scrap collectors.

Women work as house maids, and most lost their source of income as people are reluctant to employ for fear of contracting the virus.