Covid untouchability bars maids in Gurugram

Sumedha Sharma

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Tribune News Service

Gurugram, May 22

Maids are at loggerheads with local resident welfare associations (RWAs) over conditions imposed to resume work, leaving residents in the lurch.

While RWAs are busy chalking out strategy for staggered resumption of work by maids, the latter have approached the local administration and the CM, accusing housing societies of harassment. Seeking intervention, hundreds of maids in a letter to the CM and DC have alleged RWAs were imposing “irrational” conditions on them to resume work.

“For the past two months, we survived on food from community kitchen. I spent entire savings on medicines for my husband, who is diabetic. Our landlord is seeking rent and I have two children to feed. I need to get back to work, but the RWA has asked me to get tested for Covid, which costs Rs 4,000. They have threatened to blacklist me if I raise a complaint,” said Anjum, a maid in the Golf Course Road area.

A memorandum by the Gharelu Kamgar Union claimed RWAs had imposed ‘discriminatory’ conditions that had nothing to do with safety protocol mandated by the MC. While most RWAs were insisting on tests, some had barred them from using parks, benches, lifts and water coolers. Maids alleged use of force by guards besides being asked to pay for sanitisation measures at society gates. The president of a Sohna road society RWA said: “Most maids come from Covid-hit zones and residents are not willing to let them in. So we asked them to get a Covid-free certificate.”