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“Let the Planning Commission step out and teach us how to live on Rs 32 a day…I will work free for them for the rest of my life,” says Ghanshyam, who sells peanuts outside the gates of Yojana Bhavan on Parliament Street in the Capital.
In an affidavit to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, the Plan panel had said that families spending over Rs 32/day in urban areas or Rs 26/day in the rural areas will not be entitled to benefits provided to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.
Selling on pavements
Since he landed in Delhi from Uttar Pradesh in the mid-1970s, Ghanshyam has been selling chana-chur (chick-pea mixture) on the pavements.
“In 1976, I used to sell peanuts at 50 paise for 50 gm. Now it's Rs 5 for 50 gm. On a good day, I barely earn about Rs 100. Eating vegetables is a dream. I live on dal and roti ,” he says. He has a cycle so there's no expense on transport.
With things becoming tough, Ghanshyam is angry.
He is thinking of going back to his family in Etah, UP.
Laxmi Chowdhry from Bihar is despondent. Landless and illiterate, he has been selling vests and kerchiefs on the pavement since the early 1980s.
A good joke
“Rs 32? Is this a joke? Just my DTC bus tickets cost Rs 30 a day,” he says.
He has a seven-member family and earns Rs 120-150 a day.
“My daily expense on food, travel and medicine comes to about Rs 250,” he says. Apart from this, he pays house rent, and water and power charges electricity rent and, of course, the monthly “offering to the corporation people” to avoid harassment.
Daily struggle
“These people (the Plan panel) live in a different world. They need to see the daily struggle in our lives. We haven't eaten vegetables for ages. If my children save some from their mid-day meal in school, we eat them,” he says.
Disturbing encounter
The most disturbing encounter was with English-speaking Ajay Singh from Kanpur, who has been selling headphones, torches, gas- lighters, etc., since 1990. He said he had a Masters in Science and had appeared for the civil services, but unemployment brought him to the pavement right outside the Planning Commission.
“I spend Rs 60 a day just on commuting. My hopes rest on my two children — one is doing B.Tech and the other B.Sc. To pay for their education, I give tuitions after I reach home.”
Asked if he ever thought of setting up his own shop, a frustrated Ajay Singh said: “No collateral, no loan. And I don't own anything.”
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