Local residents taking away the TMT and iron parts from the debris of the building collapsed site at Shah Beri village in Greater Noida. (Express photo by Abhinav Saha)
Half-finished construction projects lie abandoned across Greater Noida’s Shahberi village, with many contractors and builders leaving town to avoid scrutiny, following the collapse of two buildings that claimed nine lives. Among those left behind is a family of migrant labourers, living in a half-built building not far from the crumbled structures.
The family of eight, including a six-month-old, was bought from Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh a week ago by a “construction worker from Bihar”, who told them he had a five-month project.
The contractor is nowhere to be found. Dependent on him for food, the family said their initial stock of supplies such as flour, rice, dal and potatoes has run out. “For the last three days, we managed with food being distributed for relief workers and journalists. Now, we’ll have to find another way,” said Saraswati Chaudhury, the family’s matriarch.
“We were working on a building nearby, and were asked by the contractor to live on the ground floor of this building. We had only been working for four days when this incident happened, and he stopped coming here altogether,” she added.
The Indian Express first met the family on Wednesday morning, when they said they feared for their safety and were planning to collect wages for four days’ labour — Rs 300 per day per person — and return home. Two days later, they were still there — nobody paid them and they had no money for the journey home.
“We don’t know the contractor’s name or number. We don’t even have phones to contact anyone,” said Bhagwati Chaudhury, a widow facing a Rs 2 lakh debt. “With the relief work happening, at least there were people around, which was reassuring. Now we’ll be all alone,” she said.
The family, like many other migrant labourers across Shahberi — including the five who died in the collapse — travel seasonally to cities for construction work, to supplement their income from farming back home.
Bhagwati said her need for an additional income was even more pressing as her crop had failed. “I grow soyabean, urad and sesame on a four-bigha plot, but rain failed us this year. I lost everything I had invested,” she said.