Lockdown: Anxiety grips farm labourers living on Yamuna floodplains

New Delhi, Apr 17 () Amid the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus, nearly 40-50 farm labourers living on the Yamuna floodplains have been cut off from the rest of the world and left waiting for the boat with food packets to arrive.

They are facing hardships due to lack of connectivity through roads and dependent on outsiders for basic amenities.

Around 40-50 farm labourers are totally cut off and can be reached only through boats, Sonu Pandit, a resident of Chilla village, said.

"There are 15-20 families, including mine, who receive food that is brought to us through boats. Life was already tough for us and the lockdown made things worse," said Shiv Kumar, 25, who works as a farm labourer along with his four brothers.

A community kitchen ,'Sewa Rasoi', run by Virendra Sachdeva and his friends Rajiv Kohli and Vijemdra Dhama in Mayur Vihar, is providing food parcels to the farm labourers amid the lockdown.

"We learnt about the plight of people living on the Yamuna floodplains. Around 200 food packets are being sent to them daily through a boat," said Sachdeva, former president of the Mayur Vihar unit of the BJP.

Abdul, a 23-year-old farm labourer and a construction worker, said he was worried when the lockdown was announced as he relied on his daily wages for food.

"But luckily, we get food packets and sometimes dry ration from Sewa Bharti. Earlier, we used to buy items from nearby localities but it has stopped now due to the lockdown. We take water from a tanker near the Hanuman temple," he said. VIT SNESNE