Haroon Bijli

Come budget season and we see a flurry of activity in the media. The television pundits are at it 24×7, championing announcements ad nauseum. Business leaders have their own PR machinery in place, with vacuous-sounding and upbeat bytes, sometimes tweet-sized.

The circus is for us, the affluent TV-watching class. However, whatsapp groups and news media that favour political parties ensured that communication about vote-winning schemes is widespread and reaches the target voter.

I took the opportunity to talk to a few people about what the budget meant to them, what government itself means to them and what they’d like the government to do. Predictably, no one had much to say about the budget, and very low expectations of the government.

Names and identifying details have been changed to protect their privacy.

Ansari

Ansari is a security guard at a municipality park. He is employed by the CHS within which the park falls

Ansari is from UP but has lived and worked in Mumbai for more than 30 years. He is from a lower caste in a minority community and owns a patch of inherited land in Etawah district His wife and one unmarried daughter live with him in a slum nearby. Two other daughters are married and live in various towns of UP. He doesn’t remember which class he completed but can read and write in Urdu, some Hindi and numbers.

Ansari was receiving Rs 15,000 per month as a salary before Covid-19. The salary was cut to Rs 12,000 in 2020. He also said the CHS let go of a few other staffers during the pandemic lockdown. His extended family (in UP) received rations for some months during the lockdown, but he himself received some extra money from residents (including myself) during the hard lockdown. He gets a rent of around Rs 2000 from two houses built on his land, but not regularly.

He has no expectations from the government though he hopes his daughters’ education (class 10, HSC) will get them some job in the future.

Rabiul and Rojul

Rabiul and Rojul are construction workers at a nearby building site. They are employed by an unnamed “seth”.

Rabiul and Rojul are from a village near Burdwan, West Bengal. Both say they have completed class 10 and are 21, but they don’t look older than 16. They are from lower castes in a minority community.

This is their second stint at the construction site. They had to return to their villages during the hard lockdown. They came back in October 2021.

They receive a daily wage of Rs 450 for 12 hours of work (8 am to 9 pm with one hour break), minus Rs 30-50 if they have lunch/dinner at site. They have pav/biscuits and tea for breakfast, if at all. On off-days they make chapati/puri and sabzi. The “seth” pays for their accommodation which is a WIP building nearby, but they had to pay for their tickets.

Their fathers are also laborers who are employed locally though they have had stints at construction sites before. Their mothers stay at home. Both have younger siblings who are at school.

Their families did not receive any income support or ration during the lockdown. They do not have any land though they claim that their families own their homes. Rabiul’s family stays in an illegal tenement from which they have been evicted once.

What do they expect from the government? They hope they get a better school building near their village, or lower train fares and mobile charges.

Ashok Kumar

Ashok Kumar is a roadside florist. He is a micro-entrepreneur and sells bouquets, roses, carnations and other decorative flowers.

Ashok Kumar is from a mofussil area in the outskirts of Kolkata. He has completed his class 12 and says he was almost hired by the Army but quit when the selection havildar asked for a bribe of Rs 20,000. He then came to Mumbai to assist a cousin who is in the same business. He has been running his own shop since 2018.

During the Covid19 hard lockdown, he had to return to his town for a few months. Business looked up briefly in December due to Christmas and New Year, but nothing like the years before Covid.

On an average day, he sells around Rs 4,000 of which his profit is less than Rs 1000. He says he tried hard to go digital, but firms like Ferns & Petals and other hyperlocal marketplaces require a certain guaranteed turnover. The marketplaces seek at least five times as much he can sell, he says.

He used to send Rs 20,000 every month to his parents before the pandemic. He has a younger brother who works at a Kolkata restaurant.

He is not very hopeful of the future. He would rather work for salary, but a lack of education hurts his aspirations. He does not pay GST and intends to keep below the radar.

He also bemoans the loss of labor; salespeople are expecting Rs 15,000 a month with board which he is unable to commit to. He must do all his work himself which is not only tiring but affects turnover – bouquets sell more and have better margin, but making bouquets takes time and effort.

What does he expect from the government? He says sarcastically – they could pay better wages to their employees so more people will spend on birthdays and celebrations.

Krishnaprasad

Krishnaprasad is from Jharkand. He sells coconut water at a street corner. During season, he sells mango.

Krishnaprasad had one single customer during the hour I spent with him on a Sunday evening.

He says he sells around 30 coconuts a day, mostly in the mornings and early evenings. He used to earn Rs 20 per coconut, but now he is happy with Rs 10. Prices have increased – coconuts are now Rs 70 instead of the Rs 40 in 2019 and vary as per location.

Business was drastically hit during lockdown. While he has a bank account and was able to set up Paytm, he was not able to source coconuts for a few months due to road closures and had to subsist on handouts and borrowed money.

His family in Jharkand received rations, though it stopped by the end of 2020. His kids are in school. He is from a socially dominant caste in his village and has some agricultural land for which he receives some rent.

Krishnaprasad was unaware of any government scheme for daily wagers or micro entrepreneurs. He ran up a debt by investing in mangoes in 2021 which he was unable to sell due to the second wave. The mangoes rotted away, but his debt continues to linger. He has over Rs 1.50 lakh still to repay. He got the loan “from the market”.

He has little expectation from the government though he hopes things will look up and “the guy who used to buy three coconuts for his family every morning will come back.”

Lallan Kumar

Lallan Kumar is from Jharkand. He runs a street-corner nursery and gardening consumables business.

Lallan Kumar has been selling plants at a street corner for over four years. The business is a partnership with three other partners who are also his relatives. He makes around Rs 1.00 lakh a month. He says he hasn’t been able to save anything for the past three years and is contemplating giving up the business. He does not pay GST though one of the partners has a PAN and GST number.

Business was almost nil during the hard lockdown, and he had to shut his shop for more than two months due to police bullying. As a result, all his plants had to be disposed off. He did not receive any compensation and does not have any insurance.

Things have improved since late 2021 but nowhere close to 2019; he says he makes around Rs 4,000 a day, with meager margins.

Lallan Kumar’s family lives with his parents and siblings in a joint family in his village. They are dominant-caste, have a house and some land, and his personal income is bolstered by income from agriculture, cattle, and occasional labor by family members. They did not receive any ration during lockdown due to some irregularity.

What expectations does he have from the government? He shrugs. His children have almost finished school; he hopes they will get jobs in nearby cities and settle down. He doesn’t want them to come to Mumbai or set up a business.

Mahesh

Mahesh is from Telangana. He is a chauffeur, car-washer, food delivery agent in Mumbai.

Mahesh migrated to Mumbai as a teenager ten years ago. He joined several older relatives who have been working in Mumbai since the 1980s. He completed his 12th class and studied in an industrial institute in Mahboobnagar district for a few months before coming to Mumbai. He is from a backward caste and his parents used to work as agricultural laborers.

He earns Rs 15,000 as a chauffeur for an executive. He supplements this by washing cars in the mornings (Rs 6,000 for ten cars) and as a delivery agent for Zomato or Swiggy occasionally in the late evenings and weekends for which he earns Rs 150-500 a day if he is “in the mood”. He sends at least Rs 10,000 home every month to his parents and sibling. He owns a bike

During the pandemic, he continued to receive his driver’s salary. His earning from car washing dropped as the CHS where he worked restricted entry for the initial few days of the lockdown.

Mahesh is active with local politics and does some social service. However, he has a poor view of most mainstream political parties and least of all the government.

He is happy with digitization and the opportunities that companies like Uber, Zomato and Google Pay enable. He says it was a struggle to receive payments on time for his car washing services, but this has smoothened out with the help of Whatsapp, Gpay and Paytm.

He has no specific expectations from the government though he hopes there will be enough schemes to support his sister’s education.

Mushtaq

Mushtaq is from UP though his family has been in Mumbai since the 1960s. He is a house painter and renovation laborer and lives in Asalpha.

Mushtaq worked in Saudi Arabia for around ten years before returning to Mumbai in 2015. He has been a laborer since childhood and has only been to a madrasa for education. He has basic literacy in Hindi, Urdu, Marathi and Arabic.

His household income took a drastic hit during demonetization (I had interviewed him in 2016 for a blog post) since his savings from Saudi Arabia were in cash.

The pandemic hit hard. His family – who include his aged parents, wife and one grown-up son (his two daughters are married) subsisted on rations since there was no work forthcoming for several months. Demand for renovation work started materializing in December 2020. 2021 saw occasional work. He says he is able to command a better price since there is low supply of experienced hands.

It is also limiting – he is often unable to take up projects on his own since he cannot find labor at a reasonable price. In a good month, he makes around Rs 1.00 lakh. In a bad month, nothing.

He owns an inherited house and land in UP which is occupied by relatives.

He does not have any expectations from the government. At present, he is trying to send his son and son-in-law to Saudi Arabia. Both have completed class ten and have some experience in food delivery, driving, and handling machinery.

[Note: when I interviewed Mushtaq in 2016, he had been devastated by demonetization; at that time, he was looking to get one of his daughters enrolled in a vocational course but could not. She is a good student but did not continue her education because of finances.]