Around 45 families, comprising daily wage labourers from Nepal, have been stuck in their rented homes in Panvel's Adai village since the lockdown, with no clue as to where they will get their next meal from. A majority of these workers had come to Panvel only a few months ago, in search of a livelihood. Most of them hail from villages in and around Dailekh district, in Kanali Pradesh, one of the 77 districts of Nepal.

Thirty-four-year-old Dambar Bahadur Shahi, a Nepalese watchman working in a nearby residential complex in Panvel for the last eight years, has been trying to help these 200-odd men and women, and their children. Shahi, who makes a meagre salary himself, has been dipping into his own savings to sponsor rice, dal, onion, potato and oil to these families. However, having exhausted his last month's salary, he is now trying to reach out to self-help groups and NGOs in Panvel to help these labourers. "They [the labourers and their families] are all from my neighbourhood in Nepal, and apart from me, they have no other contact here. I could not see them or their children starve, and therefore, I did my best to provide them basic essentials," Shahi said. He added that as the stock was less, some families would only have one meal a day, usually skipping their breakfast and dinner. "The children were given some packets of biscuits and milk, but I don't have enough money to continue feeding them."