This story is from December 13, 2021

Workers who braved return to city now worried about fresh curbs

Workers who braved return to city now worried about fresh curbs
Pune: Forty-year-old Rakesh Kumar, a resident of Bihar, had gone back from Pune last year in May due to the national lockdown. He postponed his plans to come back due to the second wave earlier this year, but constant calls and assurances from his employer and the promise of an increased pay packet resulted in his return in June.
Rakesh, who works as a waiter in Kondhwa, is worried again.
“While back home, I had somehow started a small paan and tea shop near my village. By December last year, business started improving, too. I wouldn’t have returned if not for my employer, under whom I had been working for six years in Pune. But with the new variant spreading, I dread the worst. If I have to go back now, I will not be able to pull myself up again,” Rakesh, who hails from Arwal district, said.
The new Omicron variant, said to be highly transmissible if not fatal, has been giving sleepless nights to many like Rakesh, who bravely came back to their workplaces here to reboot their lives.
Madhok Kumar, a Nepal resident, who has been working at a Hadapsar-based restobar as a server since five years, was also nervous. “After I went home in April last year, for around three months, I had nothing to do. I slowly picked myself out of stress and depression, went to Kathmandu and found work in a small factory. I decided to ignore the constant calls my employer here was making, asking me to come back since October last year. In January this year, I found a better job back home, but things again took a nasty turn between April to June. Still, I retained my job. But then, I decided that since all was fine, I should return to Pune. This time I came back with my wife and have been trying to get a job for her, too. The new variant has got us stressed. If it spreads, we again will have to go back and this time, we will not be able to return. Leaving a job there and coming back is a big risk and I hope there are no lockdowns again,” he said.
Anup Patel from Anuppur district of Madhya Pradesh works at a factory in the Ranjangaon MIDC area. He said he had to sell some cattle to set up a small grocery shop once he was back home. “My wife somehow takes care of it at present, but the business has been going downhill. I decided to come back to Pune in July after continuous calls from my employer, who sent me a train ticket and increased by salary by Rs 2,000. With this new variant, even my employer is worried and not confident when I ask him if things will be fine. I should have concentrated on my shop back home,” Patel said.

A representative of a construction company that got back a large number of its workforce from Jharkhand this year by sending them air tickets said they were waiting. “If we have to let them go again, they will never come back. This will affect our projects. Last year, we took care of them as much we could, but they left amid the lockdown. Even a mention of restrictions, containment zones and lockdown affects us,” the representative said.
Luvkush Kevat, who hails from Uttar Pradesh and came back to his employer in Pune only five months ago, said, “I had to sell off a plot back home to survive. Restrictions in Maharashtra come faster than the other states. I cannot go back again. It will destroy me and my family.”
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