As the COVID 19 lockdown spreads and tourist attractions are shut down, guides to the Hussainabad Trust properties are among those severely impacted by loss of earnings.
The Trust, which is a custodian of many landmark properties like the Chotta Immabara, Bara Imambara, the Picture Gallery and the Hussainabad Clock Tower, employs 75 guides who double up as security personnel. While their security duties take up eight hours, they squeeze in four more hours of work as guides. Each tour takes slightly over an hour and a group of tourists could give as much as Rs 300 as tip to the guides. It is this money which helps them sustain their families, as their salaries are a meagre Rs 4,500 per month.
This figure is much below the minimum wage set by the government. As per the Uttar Pradesh Minimum Wages Notification in October 2019, the minimum wages for unskilled labourers in the state is Rs 318.42. Thus, a month with 25 days of work would get an unskilled labourer Rs 7, 960.5.
Now, with the tourist attractions shut till March 31, the guides are struggling to sustain their families.
Syed Mohammed Haider Rizvi, a Lucknow-based advocate who had written to the District Magistrate and the Labour Welfare Department on November 9 last year to draw attention to their plight, says, “The salary that these guides get is in no way sufficient to provide for their children’s education or even nutritious food”.
The guides had submitted a plea to the chief minister’s office in July 2019 asking for the payment of minimum wages for them but are yet to receive any response. Haider’s application draws attention to that previous plea and also demands that a scheme for the education and medical needs of their children be put into place. He has also asked for mandatory health insurance for the guides.
Asif Hussian, a 40-year-old guide at the Bada Imambara says that the Trust’s guidelines forbid them to do any other work while in its employment. “When I started work ten years ago, I used to get Rs 2100. Till about two years ago we used to get a 9-10% hike based on inflation. Our salaries were raised to Rs 5,858 per month two years ago. Then suddenly one day there was a notice saying that this salary increase had been wrong and the hiked salary would be recovered from us going forth.”
In Hussain’s case this has meant that every month from his salary, Rs 1,500 is deducted. This has resulted in him pulling out two of his three children from school.
The state government has announced the payment of sustenance wages to daily wage earners so that they do not go out to seek work and thus risk infection. On Saturday, the government also announced a slew of other measures to aid the financially weakest during the period of uncertainty created by COVID 19. These include free ration to 1.65 crore people listed under the Antyodaya and MGNREGA schemes and Rs 1,000 through DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) to the 20.37 registered labouerers with the Labour Department.
However, for the guides employed by the Trust there are no safety nets in place. “The virus might not kill us but poverty surely will,” despairs Hussain.