SHILLONG: Social organisation Mission Wyrai, on Monday, drew the attention of Chief Minister Conrad Sangma into the plight of daily wage earners who have been severely hit due to the COVID-19-induced lockdown.
Pointing out that workers living on the outskirts of the city have been facing problems in commuting due to the exorbitant taxi fares, the organisation urged the chief minister to start a special bus service with fixed timing.
It maintained that the workers will strictly follow all protocols while travelling in the bus. “This would help the daily and weekly wage workers whose incomes have fallen by 50-70 per cent as compared to pre-coronavirus days,” the organisation said in a letter to the CM.
Stating that the taxi fares are reasonably high for daily wage workers, the organisation said, “We recently happened to speak to a number of daily wage workers, especially women, some of whom are single parent, who said that they earn Rs 250 a day and the expenditure for commuting via taxi is Rs 140, which more than half of their daily earnings”.
It said that, if the bus service were made available, the net income of the workers would increase significantly.
