Visually challenged in Thane badly hit during pandemic

Pinky Gavit, 29, a visually-challenged resident of Vangani, was in her seventh month of pregnancy when the lockdown set in last year

Pinky Gavit, 29, a visually-challenged resident of Vangani, was in her seventh month of pregnancy when the lockdown set in last year. She sold small trinkets on local trains with her husband before the pandemic and the couple made enough for survival.

Sandip Bilewar (right), a visually challenged physiotherapist, working on his patient in Ambernath. (HT Photo)

However, three months into lockdown, when she delivered a baby, the couple could hardly manage one square meal a day. With the suspension of local trains, the couple had no job and her husband had to eat just once in two days to ensure she and the baby had enough.

Like Gavit, hundreds of visually-challenged residents of Thane barely managed to make ends meet since the pandemic set in. According to the 2011 population census, Thane district rural and urban areas have 34,361 visually-challenged people. According to National Association For the Blind (NAB) India, in Thane district, 75% of the visually-challenged population are below the poverty line. Most of those in the cities have settled in Vangani and Ambernath areas due to low rentals. More than 200 families here are without a job in the pandemic.

Deputy director of the employment department of NAB, Arvind Narvekar, said, “More than 75% of the visually-challenged population are poor. They depend on hawking on trains and streets or are daily wagers. Not all of them could be educated, so when the trains were stopped in the lockdown, these people found it difficult to survive. They are still not allowed to take the train as not all of them are fully vaccinated.”

Narvekar claimed that those who worked in factories or private establishments too lost jobs as most people believed the visually-challenged might not be able to maintain low contact at work places. Another social worker from NAB added, “The visually-challenged have to go about their work through physical contact. People do not trust them. Most call centre employees also lost their jobs in a similar way. A few who worked in orchestras or cultural programmes too had to shut shop in the pandemic.”

NAB earlier used to take workshops where these people could earn some living. However, they were also stopped in the lockdown. NAB and other social workers were providing them groceries monthly, but now all of them are facing trouble after the second wave while the government has not announced anything for them, making it difficult for them to survive.

Many residing in Thane have migrated from their villages in search of a job. However, they are barely managing the rent. A NAB volunteer working in Thane said, “People do not even help them cross roads with all the misconceptions in the early pandemic. They had to struggle through every day, they had no money to buy smart phones for the children or to pay electricity bills. The money from government schemes too got delayed as offices were shut.”

Sandip Bilewar, 23, a physiotherapist from Ambernath, is partially blind and got a job as a physiotherapist before the lockdown in a Ghatkopar-based hospital. However, he lost it during the lockdown and is going from pillar to post in search of a job.

“I am staying in a hostel in Ambernath and have approached many hospitals and the government for a job. However, no one is ready to give me an opportunity. I used to visit houses of people but now no one trusts us as they thought we cannot maintain hygiene and will spread Covid. I sent request letters to health ministers, MLAs, MPs to hire me at any Covid hospital but no one helped. Right now, I am practicing my physiotherapy on my friends and some blind families who need help.”