CHENNAI: Rajeshwari stays with her two children on the first floor of a modest-sized duplex. That’s the only property the 55-year-old single mother owns. The ground floor of the building is split into two, and a total of 10 people were living there.

All of them were migrant workers from Assam, working in companies nearby the house in Good Well Street of Mangalapuram, Ambattur Industrial Estate. Cramped into the tiny rooms, they stayed there hoping to make some quick money and return home.

As for Rajeshwari, the rental income was decent. It provided her family with enough to tide through every month. When the lockdown hit the city, and incomes dried up, the migrant workers fled, in groups. Now, there are only three tenants left in the building.

“Because of the government instruction, I am not taking any rent from them too,” claims Rajeshwari.

“We are now solely dependant on my widow pension of Rs 1,000. With the virus spreading around like wildfire, I don’t think I will get new tenants anytime soon. We have no clue what the future holds for us.”

While most migrant workers, indeed, left the town because they were thrown out by their house owners for not paying rent, the fact remains that most of these owners are solely dependant on the rent money for existence.

With the government asking landlords not to collect rent, people in this segment have been hit hard, as hard as any other economic sector.

“I have taken education loans for my children. I have to start repaying them once the moratorium period ends. Now, I do not even have enough money to pay my electricity bills, let alone repay loans,” laments Rajeshwari.

The residential colonies around the Ambattur Industrial Estate now look like little ghost towns. With most tenants gone, house owners here are clueless on how they will recover. Rajeshwari’s neighbours Sukumar and Lakshmi too share the same woes.

“Sukumar was working in an export company. He quit after developing liver complications,” says Lakshmi.

“Now, we are solely dependant on the rental income. That too has stopped. We don’t know how we are going to manage our affairs.” Sukumar claims every hospital visit for treatment costs him Rs 40,000.

“We had 12-13 tenants in our eight rooms. Most of them have left already, and the others are also planning to leave. I have already missed a hospital appointment,” says Sukumar showing us his swollen leg. The worry in his face is palpable. The small and medium industrial units dotting the estate area brought fine prospects for these owners when the going was good. Vanaja (name changed) refuses to reveal her real identity fearing we are from the Corporation, but when convinced admits she built three ‘line houses’ with four single rooms in each line banking on the migrant workers in these units.

The line houses are neatly concealed behind her own residence, and all the occupants there were from northern or northeastern States.

“There were 40 persons staying here. All of them have left for home except me,” says a native of Bihar staying there, the lone resident now.

How the rooms, barely enough to accommodate one person, was shared by 3-4 grown men will remain a mystery to us. Such tiny rooms are present all along industrial areas, from the Ambattur Estate to Pattarawakkam, which is 3-4 km away.

Many of them are empty now.

“Some 25-30 workers from Odisha and West Bengal were staying here,” says a man emerging out of one such room in Mariyamman Street here.

Facing each other, there are two lines here with five houses/rooms in each of them. All of them but one are empty now.

“They were all working in the printing presses and small companies nearby.” The man says the migrant workers did not rent the room directly. Instead, they were contracted by labour agents to accommodate the workers. “The workers did not pay rent.

The agents did.” The rents charged are not high. They vary between Rs 1,000 and Rs 3,000 in small units and between Rs 4,000 and Rs 7,000 in larger houses. Septuagenarian Yegala Devi has already put up a ‘To Let’ board outside her house in Kanniyamman Koil Street.

“Of the 15 persons staying here, nine have already left. Most of them were from Tirunelveli and were working for motor vehicle parts companies in Padi,” she says.

“The board has been hanging here for days, but none has approached yet. I don’t know how long I will have to wait.”

HUMBLE ABODES

The rents charged from tenants are not high. They vary between Rs 1,000 and Rs 3,000 in small units and between Rs 4,000 and Rs 7,000 in larger house. ‘Line houses’ are usually the cheapest

When over a lakh migrant workers left Chennai by trains and buses – and thousands by foot and cycles – not everyone comprehended the impact it would have on the local economy. Industry bodies scoffed it off, saying another set would arrive to replace the old hands. Yet, an entire ecosystem that catered to this group of workers is now crumbling, including the housing sector. Vikraman Maniraj and Shiba Prasad Sahu talk to a few owners.