By Debraj Deb
Agartala, May 6, 2020: As Mumbai’s Dharavi has shown, managing a pandemic in a slum can be a nightmare.
This is where Agartala’s Radhanagar Purba Basti has set itself apart with general cleanliness, social discipline and community engagement in effectively managing the requirements of the prolonged lockdown.
“We wash our hands at least 3-4 times a day with soap. We stay inside our house,” sums up Pradip Adhikari, a 68-year-old rickshaw puller, among the 2,000 residents of the slum. Adhikari says that since they don’t have money for masks, they use the ‘gamcha’ — a traditional towel — to cover their faces.
Settled around five decades ago, the Radhanagar slum has around 650 families. As part of a 2013 mission to make Tripura slum-free, part of the area was re-developed and 80 families rehabilitated there.
Still, the vast majority continues to live in small tin or thatched huts. Like Adhikari, many of the residents are among the 340,000 Antodaya Annapurna Yojana (AAY) beneficiaries in the state, usually given to the poorest of the poor.
With most residents rendered jobless, social organizations have shouldered the responsibility to providing food, ration supplies, medicines and other daily necessities.
Adhikari’s family has received rice, pulses, cooking oil, soyabean and other daily necessities from these donors along with the most precious commodity these days: soap.
The community has restrictions for visitors too. In fact, no one is allowed in without covering their face with a gamcha. The slum has been cordoned off on all sides too.
However, the slums enthusiasm to stick to their strict lockdown rules have not gone down well with all. There was a brawl recently over their move to cordon off entry for outsiders. “Local boys and people from other slums threatened us. But we didn’t budge. We shall keep ourselves protected,” says Rakesh Mallik.
Maran Malakar, a 25-year-old, used to earn about 300 rupees a day working as a daily wager breaking bricks at a local construction site. But with work stalled for close to a month, he is now dependent on supplies from the municipal body, a local MLA and the local Radhamadhab Unnayan Sangha.
“I don’t go out, remain indoors and eat what they give us. They gave us rice, pulses and asked us not to go outside till lockdown is over. Money is a problem, but what can we do?” says Malakar, underlining the fact that they have kept the slum safe. But, he is not familiar with the concept of social distancing and just follows the diktat of elders to stay put inside their huts.
However, despite all the caution, slums present their own sets of challenges in the present situation.
“These people live in 8×8 ft huts where space is very limited. Naturally congestion happens and social distancing is not always possible,” explains Jhutan Lashkar, secretary of Radhamadhab Unnayan Sangha. He says the club has take charge of providing cooked meals, raw ingredients and medicines to make sure nobody comes out and we “succeed in breaking the chain of transmission”.
Though just 18, school dropout Sangram Das is clearly more aware than some of his elder neighbors. “We stay very conscious, don’t go out of our homes unless necessary, stand at least one meter away from each other and don’t frequent the markets,” says the boy who has just been laid off from his first job at a garage, visibly proud at being a member of what he claims is the “cleanest slum” at the moment.
Source: The Indian Express