As more and more people move to Noida, the demand for domestic helps, carpenters, electricians and plumbers is steadily rising here.
Consequently, small flats have sprung up in villages around Noida — Sorkha, Sarfabad and Barola — to rent out to these workers. This, even as residents of high-rises claim that most domestic helps have come from Bangladesh and are illegally living in India.
It was when the high-rises were coming up here that the developers had called in thousands of labourers. Most of them, however, did not return once construction was complete.
“Nearly 5,000 illegal shanties have come up around the new sectors. Slums have, in fact, come up on Noida Authority land. Today’s incident could have happened in any society,” said Amit Gupta, a local.
Thankless jobs
“We do not have any other way to make ends meet. Returning to our home towns doesn’t make sense as there is no work there. Many of my friends work in the National Capital Region as domestic helps, rickshaw pullers, carpenters and painters,” said Santosh Kumar, who hails from Bihar.
“Our wives work as domestic helps while we work part-time at construction sites. When there is no work, I take a rickshaw on rent. But there are some people here from Bangladesh who create nuisance. After what happened today, people blame our entire community, but not all of us are bad. There are sincere and honest people too,” said Naresh Jana, who hails from West Bengal and lives in Sorkha village on rent.
He said that people like him did thankless jobs and had to face the ire of their employers and local villagers as well.
