It’s 8 a.m. and Chawri Bazar in Old Delhi was already bustling with people rushing to their work stations. However, a sense of stillness hung over 50-odd workers lined up on a footpath near the Hauz Qazi labour chowk.
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Every day, they gather at the spot hoping to get employment but a majority of them fail to find work and are forced to cut their expenses on food.
Md. Asif, 35, father of three, said he skips at least one meal every day to save money for his children’s education. “Earlier, at least we could eat roti twice a day, now even that is impossible,” he said.
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Twenty-four-year-old Md. Sarfaraz — the youngest among them — said he came to Delhi in search of better wages last month but hardly earned ₹1,000 a week despite being skilled at plumbing, whitewashing and wood work.
He said instead of sending money back to his family in Bihar’s Darbhanga, he ended up borrowing ₹2,000 from someone last month to meet his expenses in the city.
“Wages are low. An unskilled labourer gets only ₹600 for a day’s work while a skilled worker gets ₹900. But there is no guarantee that you would find work. I got a six-hour job recently and was paid only ₹350, instead of ₹600 that I was promised,” he said.
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Workers at the chowk said the closure of businesses during demonetisation, COVID-19 lockdown and inflation took a toll on their livelihood.
“Salaried people these days don’t have enough to spend. Their expenses have gone up but their income stays stagnant,” said 29-year-old Pawan Kumar.
However, it seems they are not alone in this ordeal. Bahutva Karnataka, a forum for concerned citizens and organisations, on March 11 released a report, “Employment, Wages and Inequality”, which analysed the progress in various employment-related indicators in the past decade.
Data show that there has been hardly any increase in wages after inflation is factored in. It shows that average weekly earnings for male casual workers, which stood around ₹1,000 per week in 2011-2012, increased to only ₹1,216 in 2022-2023. Around 34 % of households earn less than the national floor level minimum wage of ₹375 a day, the data revealed.