Residents of many villages in Murshidabad’s Behrampore who are employed in the construction sector in Kerala are glad they stayed back in the coastal state now that builders are getting back to work in Unlock 1.
After more than two-and-a-half-months, not only are these workers getting work, their wages have also risen.
Reason: many migrant labourers had left Kerala for their home states during the lockdown, resulting in labour shortage.
“My wage has jumped by 30 per cent to Rs 1,100 a day, something I could not have imagined before,” said Domkal resident and mason Faridul Islam, 31, speaking to The Telegraph over phone from Kerala’s Ernakulam.
Islam lives with seven friends from Domkal in a tenement-like dwelling near their construction site. Their daily wages till pre-lockdown March were not more than Rs 800.
As industries are trying to resume production and make up for lockdown losses, they are scouting for labour, which is in short supply.
Though the lockdown caused immense hardship to migrant workers who stayed on, they are reaping the rewards now. “We weren’t expecting a wage hike, but our risk paid off, so why complain,” Faridul said.
Among his friends employed in masonry in Ernakulam is Raninagar resident Noorislam Sheikh, 38. Noorislam said they faced “unprecedented troubles for at least two months as a result of the lockdown and joblessness”, but the wage hike made it worth it.
“Kerala is almost back to normal now, and we are glad to work. We are ready to forget the hardships we went through, including hunger,” he said. “We are not even thinking of returning home before Id al-Adha (Bakr-Id) in August.”
The trickle-down effect is helping unskilled labourers in the construction sector, many of who were making as much as Rs 800 a day this week, up from the usual Rs 500, he said.
Domkal resident Obaid Mondal, 38, head mason at a construction site in Ernakulam, decided against returning home to Garibpur village fearing joblessness post-lockdown. “I was worried about transport (from Kerala to Domkal) and jobs back home,” he said. “I did not want to return home before Bakr-Id in August. I am earning Rs 1,200 a day now,” he said.
Nowda resident Shakil Mollah, 22, a labour contractor at a site in Hyderabad, Telangana, was among the few in his team who stayed back. “We were a team of 60 and 17 of us stayed back last month. We are shouldering the work of the team and earning extra,” he said.
Most migrant youths, however, buckled under uncertainty and came back home.
Nowda resident Alahim Mondal, 26, returned home to Gangadhari on a bus from Kerala on May 7. He had shelled out more than Rs 8,000 for his seat. But after completing his quarantine, he said: “Things look bleak”.
Alahim is not excited about job prospects under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. For a skilled worker, it means a sharp dip in earnings. While the scheme guarantees a minimum of Rs 20,000 a year, skilled masons like Alahim earn the sum every month.
Still, Alahim has no choice.
“I am uneducated, so I am struggling with the online MGNREGA application,” he said. “All I’m thinking of is how to go back to Kerala.”