Despairing and desperate, daily wage workers battle for survival in coronavirus days

Waging a desperate battle for survival, they are the invisible millions who eke out a precarious living as construction workers, painters, food vendors and a host of other jobs suddenly rendered redundant in these COVID-19 days.

As India grinds to a halt with a three-week nationwide lockdown in place to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, the unorganised working force on the margins of society might be the worst hit with no savings and therefore completely dependent on what they earn each day.

According to official data, there are 42 crore (420 million) people in the unorganised sector, including agricultural labourers, spread out across the sprawl that is India.

Some are migrant workers, stuck in distant corners with no transport to take them back to their villages, others are scrounging to make ends meet with no money coming in. And all are getting increasingly frantic on how they and their families will manage in the days and weeks to come.

The stories are many varied and yet the same, of hopes for the future dimming and dreams of prosperity receding into the unseen distance.

The bright lights of a big city had beckoned Bhupesh Kumar, a 22-year-old daily wage labourer from Bihar's Begusarai district who is now stuck in Delhi, unable to either go back home or earn a livelihood here.

"I was doing my graduation but had to come to Delhi about five months ago because my family was very poor. I was learning plastering. I have barely earned anything..., he said.

Anjani Mishra, a contractor who takes on whitewash and paint jobs, has asked the five people who work for him to to return home.

I am from Raxaul in Bihar and want to go back. But all buses and train services have been cancelled. I asked many taxi drivers to drop me to my hometown, but they are refusing as the police has sealed borders along the national capital."
"Being jobless is very painful particularly at time of such difficulties. We don't see a silver lining of hope ahead, said Doly, 52, an MGNREGA worker in the state