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How Mumbai school bus staff are struggling to make ends meet amid Covid-19 second wave

It’s been 14 months since Mumbai’s school bus staff had a job. The lucky have been absorbed by the BEST, while a majority are struggling even to find temporary gigs as porters

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Having had to borrow money to pay for electricity, rent and ration, Shaikh, a bus attendant for 12 years feels it no longer makes sense to be part of the school transportation system. Pic/Sameer Markande

Having had to borrow money to pay for electricity, rent and ration, Shaikh, a bus attendant for 12 years feels it no longer makes sense to be part of the school transportation system. Pic/Sameer Markande

Suresh Saidappa Harijan was barely 21 when he first sat behind the wheel of a school bus. He doesn’t remember how the last 15 years went by. But, Harijan, a father of three children, says he saw himself doing this job for the rest of his life. “I was quite content. While I had to put in long hours on weekdays, I had the weekends for my family,” says the 36-year-old Andheri resident. “We’d barely manage with the salary. Whatever my wife [a house help] and I would make was spent on our children’s education. They have always been our priority. We wanted them to study and find more respectable jobs.”

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