Lockdown taking heavy toll on poor residents
Source: Chronicle News Service / R Lester Makang

Ukhrul, May 17 2021: With the district entering third week into the ongoing twin lockdowns, the district populace, especially the poor and marginalised sections are facing severe hardships, trying to make ends meet.

While majority of town residents are trying to get by on their minimal savings, many poor daily wage earners and vendors are apparently caught in a worse situation with harder means to come by to feed their families during the current extended lockdown.

The entire district has been under lockdown since May 5, which was clamped by the district's CSOs under the banner of Tangkhul Coordination Forum on Covid-19 (TCFC).

Then on May 7, the district administration imposed another district-wide curfew till May 17, which has now been extended till May 22 on Monday.

For a 60-year-old Athing, a vegetable vendor at Ava Market in the town, her family has been in a fix since she closed her shop due to the lockdown.

"For over two weeks, 1 have been out of work and confined at home, which means no earning for our livelihood," she related.

Stating that her family depended on a meagre earning she got each day from selling her wares, she continued, "I was not ready for such a long period of lockdown which came so suddenly".

According to Athing, she is not the only one, but there are many other poor vendors like her who are finding it hard to feed the hungry stomach of their families.

"With no other means of survival here due to the lockdown, many of them have gone to their native places soon after the lockdown was announced.

They are depending on the support of their relatives to tide over the lockdown period," she said.

Faced with a similar fate, another daily wage earner, a construction worker who refused to be named, said that he has been out of work for the past two weeks due to the curfew.

He said that his family did not even stock up enough food stuffs as the lockdown was imposed all of a sudden.

"Forget delicious curry or cuisine items, I don't even know how long the stock of rice with us, would feed my family," he said anxiously.

On the other hand, many town residents are griping about depleting food stocks in their households.

"It's been weeks now, my family has been dining on boiled vegetables and dal," another resident Achan said.

"We have been looking for some dried fish and the likes but they are nowhere to be found," he rued.

The current lockdown has also proved to be a double whammy for the poor denizens of the district as prices of most of the essential items have shot up considerably even as they are fast becoming scarce commodities during the lockdown.

Comment