Mumbai: After helping BMC during Covid, Community Health Volunteers now beg on streets

Khairunnisa Khan Mastani (in pink kurta), a retired community health volunteer, waits for alms outside a mosque in Bandra, on Wednesday. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Khairunnisa Khan, alias Mastani, sits listlessly outside a Bandra mosque, waiting to receive alms, her only source of income. Before her retirement in 2014, Mastani, now 73, was among the city's 4,000 community health volunteers, many of whom shone as the BMC's footsoldiers in its fight against Covid.

But these workers are not even paid the minimum wage, forget retirement benefits. After a protracted legal battle, the Bombay High Court in 2017 ordered that they be treated as BMC employees, but the civic body moved Supreme Court. A volunteer is paid Rs 9,000 a month. The community health volunteers have no idea when the top court will take a decision on their future. Without retirement benefits, many like Mastani are begging on the streets for survival.

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Saraswati Sapkal begs opposite the Saidham temple at Kandivli (East). Pic/Anurag Ahire

As the BMC's frontline workers, health volunteers are involved in surveying and awareness of government-run health programmes like Pulse Polio, TB and leprosy. Despite being exposed to contagious diseases and other health risks, they do not have insurance and allowances.

"After much efforts, the BMC agreed to raise our salary by Rs 2,000 a month from June, but it has not happened," said a community health volunteer. mid-day met two retired health volunteers who beg to survive.

‘My starting pay was Rs 200'

Saraswati Sapkal, 68, lives at Saraswati Chawl, Hanuman Nagar in Kandivli East. For the past four years, she has been begging in front of the Saidham temple off the Western Express Highway. Her home has no power supply.

Sapkal joined as a community health volunteer in 1994 with a monthly salary of R200, which had risen to R4,000 by the time she retired in February 2019. Sapkal lost her husband in 1996. Of their four children, two daughters died in their adulthood. Her younger son is emotionally disturbed, while the other works for an automobile company but doesn't take care of his mother.

Sapkal said, "In my 25 years as a community health volunteer, I visited homes in my area every day, braving rain, heat and winter. Whatever little I was to get after retirement, I haven't even got it."

Saraswati Sakpal at her home, which doesn't have electricity, at Akurli, Kandivli West. Pic/Anurag Ahire

Sapkal said life is harsh after retirement. "Somehow, I could manage things when I was working, but I have no source of income now. Also, I don't have the strength to work. So I started begging outside the temple. I request the government to help me and other health volunteers with some pension."

‘Never took leave in 20 years'

Mastani said she got the name from civic officials who often appreciated her hard work. She started in 1994 and retired in 2014. She also started with R200 a month. She said she was among many who helped the BMC carry out vasectomies.

"I never took leave in my 20 years of service, worked in the social sector as well. With the help of former minister Salim Zakaria, I got a water pipeline installed in my area." Her son and his wife live separately.

"I live with my daughter and granddaughter in a hut but they also do not take care of me. I've diabetes and need food and medicine on time but I am not getting that too. Sometimes, I beg for my medicine and food at Bandra Masjid," she said.

Shameful policy: Union leader

Advocate Prakash Devdas, president of Mahapalika Arogya Seva Karmachari Sanghatana, Mumbai, said they have been fighting for the health volunteers for several years. The workers got a favourable response from the labour court in 2002, prompting the BMC to approach the HC.

Mastani says she spent 20 years as a community health volunteer but received no benefits. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

"The Bombay High Court declared them as BMC employees, but the BMC has gone to the Supreme Court only with a view to delay justice. As a result, those community health volunteers who are retired have no alternative but to beg. The policy of BMC is shameful," said Devdas. The union leader said the BMC is shying away from PF and pension benefits citing the case in the SC. "Hundreds of the health volunteers will be retiring in two years. They will also be forced to beg for their bread and butter." This newspaper also spoke to a few on-duty health volunteers.

‘We're not Asha workers'

Kalpana Mahatre, a health volunteer for 20 years, said, "There is a misconception among people that we are on a par with Anganwadi or Asha workers, but we are not." She said their job was very challenging during Covid. "In the peak of the pandemic, we helped shift Covid patients to hospital from their homes. We were the first to touch base with the Coronavirus patients."

Mahatre said community health volunteers are appointed through a process similar to other BMC employees like nurses and midwives. "Others' jobs are regularised after a few years but we haven't been lucky."

‘Others took credit, forgot us'

Manda Angorkhe, who works in Dharavi, said, "Everyone took the credit for the work we did during Covid and were honoured as ‘corona warriors'. Then they forgot us." Despite working on the health front, Angorkhe said, they don't get the facilities that BMC workers get at civic-run hospitals. "If a community health volunteer is pregnant and goes to a BMC hospital, she first has to pay R10 to buy the admission form. But BMC workers flash their ID cards and get it for free."

‘We too have a family'

Sunita Sutar said they keep in touch with 650 to 2,000 homes and maintain health records with regard to many diseases apart from pregnant women and children. "Whatever health-related information reaches the BMC from ground zero, it's generated by us. Considering the responsibility we have been entrusted with, we are not getting what we deserve." She added, "We also have a family. Like the others in the BMC who are entitled to facilities, we should also get them." Additional Municipal Commissioner Sanjay Kumar said he was busy with the Assembly session work and would talk later. But there was no response at the time of going to print.

4,000
No of volunteers in the city

2002
When labour court ordered in favour of the volunteers