Demolished over Bangladeshi hub claim, Bellandur slum reels under lockdown

An angry crowd watches as volunteers distribute food to only those who have food coupons. A volunteer hands out rations (inset). (R) Geetha (40) with her grandson. DH PHOTOS/Akhil Kadidal

Members of NGO Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samithi hand out ration. 

For the residents of the Kariyammana Agrahara slum near Bellandur Lake in southeastern Bengaluru, the lockdown could not have come at a worse time.

Just three months ago, the police and BBMP officials razed the settlement over fears that the place was crawling with illegal foreign immigrants, leaving the residents in tatters.

Geetha (40), a daily wager pushed to the margins due to lack of education despite being born in the IT city, said the lockdown, forced on the city by the Covid-19 pandemic, has left the community with no source of income.

No milk for babies

“The government truck comes in the afternoon, but we go without food for the rest of the day,” she said.

Her 23-year-old daughter, who has a two-year-old child to care for, said the government did not make arrangements to supply milk. “We can’t feed pulao to the baby,” she said. Geetha had to borrow Rs 5,000 just to buy milk, vegetables and other essential food items.

Midhul Das from Assam, a security guard left jobless by the lockdown, said the food supplied by the government is of low quality. “I had diarrhoea for two days after eating the pre-cooked veg pulao and white rice,” he said, adding that the situation in the settlement is “tense and difficult.”

“We get stressed thinking of (lack of) money,” Das continued. “We heard in the news that the government will offer a stipend to daily wage earners, but how will they give the money to us? And when?”

Care package

Some residents said a care package to select households by NGOs and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) comes in addition to the daily food from the Department of Labour.

The CITU package consists of 10 kg rice, five kg potatoes, laundry and Dettol soaps, various curry powders or dal, five kg onions, two kg tomatoes, five kg wheat, a packet of salt, cooking oil and other consumables.

Several residents claimed that the package was largely going to the Bangladeshis living in a neighbouring camp, 300 metres away. In late January, the Kariyammana Agrahara slum was at the centre of the controversy that it was populated by Bangladeshi immigrants.