Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 14: Former Minister and senior Congress leader, Raman Bhalla urged upon the Government to attend to the needs of poor, daily wagers on priority amidst prolonged Covid-19 lockdown and insisted for taking concrete steps with regard to safe evacuation of J&K residents stranded outside the Union Territory.
“Even as J&K grapples with the rise in COVID-19 cases, people have been forced to remain indoors during the pandemic but the worst affected are the daily wagers and other labourers. Though Govt is taking every possible step, yet, the labourers, especially the daily wagers, seem have gotten the raw end of the deal,” Bhalla said, adding if the lockdown is extended beyond the period envisaged now, the economically underprivileged sections of the society, particularly landless labour, will undergo a heavy suffering.
The former continued ration distribution today in various parts of Gandhi Nagar constituency among needy and poor families.
He distributed ration items at Bahu Fort in Ekta Nager, Pacca Talab and Kaccha Talab.
Prominent among those who accompanied Bhalla included Pawan Kumar, Deewan Chand, Latish Sharma, Sahil Shavotra, Aman Bawa, Inderjeet Nargotra, Sunny Kumar, Jarnal Singh, Dea Raj Kumar, Minder Pal, Balvinder Shavotra and Bittu Shavotra.
“Farmers have complained of lack of workers to harvest crops while snarl-ups of thousands of trucks not allowed to move because of the lockdown have hampered food transport. Government data shows that 65.49 million people live in 13.92 million slum households in 2613 slum-reported towns spread across 31 States/Union Territories. An Indian Council of Medical Research study has suggested that one Covid-19 patient can infect 406 people in 30 days if he/she doesn’t adhere to lockdown,” Bhalla maintained.
He said the impact on informal workers generally-daily wagers, those with insecure contracts; regular workers with micro and small enterprises that are having to shut shops and self-employed people is devastating as the lockdown has already meant loss of income that they cannot afford, and such workers typically have very little savings to draw upon. “Farmers are already facing massive problems because of closure of mandis and breaking of transport links, and other farm income sources like poultry have been badly hit by virus fears. An immediate safety net of massive proportions is essential if hunger and related problems do not result in even more tragic outcomes than the virus itself,” Bhalla added.
He emphasised that what needs to be understood is that agriculture cannot be under lockdown.
Bhalla demanded immediate evacuation of J&K residents, including students and labourers staying away from their homes within and outside the country.
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