Surviving a city on ₹13,690
Outside a building that looks like a concrete cube, a line of buses wait to take workers home. The bell is ringing. Hundreds of people in sand-coloured uniforms are streaming out. Food vendors move through the queues by placing their stalls in the spaces between the buses.
Surabhi (name changed to protect her identity) slowly walks out with a group of friends, shoulders sagging, after her 16-hour shift. One of the women points to an ice cream stand and gently pulls Surabhi’s arm and asks if they would each like to have a cone.
Surabhi nods. “make a hostage; ₹80 ka ek hai (No matter; one costs ₹80),” he says. He worked overtime at the multinational company, which operates inside a concrete cube whose perimeter is guarded by other workers and protected by barbed wire running over high walls. He had to work extra hours, including 8 hours in a normal shift, to survive in the city.
More than a month ago, thousands of workers from various private companies in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar district took to the streets demanding better working conditions and increased wages. With inflation, there was little left for savings or even small indulgences.
The State Government had not changed the minimum wage since 2014 despite thinking twice about it. Noida lies in the National Capital Region, a 55,083 square kilometer area centered around Delhi and surrounding areas in the three states, created to ensure “balanced and harmonious development”, according to the government’s website.
The government was forced to revise the minimum wage after workers claimed it on the streets for a week. A committee, including members of the Ministry of Labor and workers and industry representatives, increased the wages of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers to ₹13,690, ₹15,059 and ₹16,868 respectively from ₹11,313, ₹12,445 and ₹13,940 earlier.
Hopes exceeded salaries
When Surabhi was just over 21 years old, she started working as an intern in an automotive manufacturing company. He was hoping to climb the corporate ladder, but says he’s still right where he started.
Not learning anything new in the last nine years is his biggest problem at work. “Learning how to make automotive parts is not difficult: 15 days of training does it. So how does this add value to my personality?” he says. “Will I learn anything about the world?”
“How long do you think it will take to buy a house? Maybe 100 years!” he says, answering his own question. “I want to buy a house where I can live alone. Then I will adopt a child,” adds Surabhi.
At home, Surabhi produces the pay slips for March and April. When he compares these, he says that the increase will not have much impact on his life. He may still not have money for the occasional ice cream treat. “I prefer to buy milk and vegetables,” he says.
He cannot afford to live alone. In the past, he survived on loans from friends. Now his brother has moved in with him and they share the expenses. “My monthly expenses go up to ₹15,000,” says Surabhi. “Restriction has now become part of the routine,” he adds.
The reason he worked 16 hours a day was because the government reiterated that overtime would be paid twice as much per hour. The company insists that workers do the entire second shift if they want to work overtime.
Rakhi Sehgal, an independent researcher who studies labor and union issues, says there is an employment crisis. “Decent, secure jobs are almost non-existent, and the situation will only get worse as the real impact of the West Asian crisis begins to appear on the economy,” says Sehgal. “What gets overlooked in all the talk about wage increases and the cost of living crisis is that workers want respect and dignity, that they want their hopes and dreams of a better life to be respected, if not possible.”
Surabhi hopes to graduate from college one day so she can have a better job, then a house, then a child.
The allure of a global city
Yash, a migrant worker from UP’s Jalaun district, recently moved to Noida with the hope of building a better future. File | Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
For 23-year-old Yash (name changed), Noida represented upward and forward movement. “Aage badhne ke liye hum yahan aaye the (I came here to progress),” he says.
At first, everything seemed too good to be true: a paying job, food, and a place to stay. He would slowly earn, save, and build a life in a city that often called itself “first class” in government advertisements. He thought life would be different from what he saw in the village. It was different from the joint family structure in the Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh, where almost everyone he knew worked the land. “I wanted to explore,” he says.
In March, he started working at a company that produces electrical products. Now Yash occupies a 10×8 meter room on the top floor of a four-storey building with at least 10 rooms on each floor. “I’m getting married next month. I thought I’d save some money for that, but there’s nothing left by the end of the month,” he says, grimacing.
The complex web of the city’s economic microactivities led him to someone who offered a first-class service: examining a group of companies and helping him decide which one would be best to join.
“I paid him 1,500 Indian rupees for the hard work of going through the profile of each company, examining their pros and cons and telling me which one was the best with maximum benefits and least work,” says Yash. It turned out that the man was a fraudster.
The company he was interviewing with would also provide much less return than he had imagined. “The ad I saw promised pay of INR 20,000 for an eight-hour shift and benefits for housing, food and transportation,” he says. This seemed lucrative compared to the ₹12,000 he earned working 12 hours a day for a similar company in Auraiya.
What he said he received was ₹11,000 and no benefits other than transportation. Company meals were covered by his own salary, and he had to find his own accommodation.
Yash, scrolling through ads on his smartphone telling him to “bring an advance for accommodation”, says he has no idea how he will manage his expenses on ₹11,000. “It’s scary: living alone in a city and not knowing how to do it,” he says. “My brother had given me 7,000 Indian rupees to start staying in Noida. So I paid the rent in advance and bought a cot and a bed. I was dependent on outside food for the first month,” says Yash.
In May, he spent ₹5,000 on room rent, including electricity bill; ₹2,500 for food; and ₹1,200 for travel to the point where his company’s bus will pick him up. Another ₹500 went towards phone bill, ₹1,500 towards cooking supplies and ₹500 towards overheads. “All the money flew away before I could save anything for my upcoming wedding and trip with my friends!” He hopes to have a fun time before the wedding with the salary increase.
He says Yash will continue looking for a new job. If nothing reliable comes along, he’s considering renting a motorcycle and starting work for a platform-based ride-hailing company. “Some say it’s more profitable. At least you won’t have to sit in one place all day long,” he adds.
Arithmetic of survival
Returning home at midnight after a 12-hour shift, 32-year-old Saurabh (name changed) walks into a compact building similar to Yash’s, but Saurabh has a two-room house.
He moved to Noida 12 years ago from Ballia in Uttar Pradesh and found stability as a mechanical supervisor in a reputed automobile company with a salary of ₹25,000. Last year the company closed the plant and told workers it would call them back when a new plant opened.
Since then Saurabh has been working in a cardboard manufacturing company.
The violence and police response that followed the workers’ protest created brief uncertainty about his job, as all workers were asked to leave immediately, without any confirmation of when they would be recalled. Since his future was uncertain, he asked his wife and children to return to the village.
“Earlier, my two younger brothers used to stay in a separate room, but now we have left that aside and started living together because it helps save money,” says Saurabh.
Together, the three siblings are trying to save money for their second sibling’s wedding next month. “It is not possible for a single man to survive in this city. Snow hello nahi payega (He will not survive in any way),” he says.
According to Saurabh, a room in Noida costs ₹5,000 per month, groceries cost around ₹3,000 per person, education for two children costs ₹4,600, and medicines and emergencies account for ₹1,500. At the end of the month, after sharing the same space with his siblings, the remaining small amount goes to savings.
Earning more money means subjecting the body to more labor. “Two basic meals a day require at least 3,000 Indian rupees a month,” says Saurabh. “How long can you keep working? The body gets tired. There is a limit to what it can endure,” he says. The company he worked for did not double his overtime pay, but his salary was increased.
In addition to doubling overtime, the government also guaranteed workers a weekly holiday, salaries to be paid before the 10th of each month, bonuses and a complaints box where they can submit their complaints anonymously.
The Labor Commissioner also reassured workers through a video on social media that it is the Ministry of Labor’s responsibility to work for workers’ rights.
shrimansi.kaushik@thehindu.co.in
Edited by Sunalini Mathew.
