These labourers are landowners back home

Hit by drought and saddled with bad farm loans, a group of labourers, owners of small landholdings back home in Yadgir district, are working at building construction sites in the City to eke out a living.

Twenty-five such migrants, including six women, are presently working at a four-storey building that caved in at Mahadevapura on Wednesday.

Basavaraj, one of the labourers, told Deccan Herald that their team of workers hailed from villages near Yadgir town — Ramasamudra, Madnahalli, Belageri, Munagal and Saidapura. They work under Tayappa, a chief mason, and stay in hutments in Nagawarapalya. They are skilled in moulding work and concrete mixing. Men earn Rs 230 and women Rs 150 for a day’s toil.

Basavaraj, 45, of Madnahalli, said his family of three brothers owned five acres, mostly rainfed. They grow pulses. “But farming has been unviable. We migrated to cities when crops and rains failed. This has been our story for the past 15 years. This time was no different. I came to Bangalore seven months ago, hit by a severe drought. I haven’t visited my family this year,” he said.

Sarojamma, 60, from Ramasamudra, recounted that she had been coming to Bangalore every year for the past seven years to work as a coolie. “My husband owns two acres of land. He does farming, but nothing except debt is growing. So I have to work as a coolie even at this age. It can’t repay our debts. But without this, the family back home cannot even have a square meal a day. My son also works with me,” she  said.

Mahadevamma, mother of Sabanna who died trapped under the debris of the collapsed building, told Deccan Herald, “My husband died long ago. Though he had got some land as his share of the family property, we had to sell it to repay loans borrowed by him. My son Sabanna and I had been working as coolies in Bangalore for the past many years. I had planned to get him married to my brother’s daughter this year. Now, the City has taken away my son, too. For whom should I live now. I am orphaned,” she said.