In April, when Lata Tilwari turned up at the doorstep of households she had been sweeping clean for seven years, a barrage of inquires came her way: “Hope you are working at only our house?” “How can we pay you as much when our own earnings have crashed during the lockdown?” “You reside with your family in a crammed one-room house. Is it safe for us?”

Eventually, she was asked to stay home indefinitely until the pandemic subsided, despite the government easing restrictions, with households fearing she may bring coronavirus (COVID-19) upon them. “Even I may contract the illness from them. Yet earning a livelihood is more important,” said Ms. Tilwari, who lives in the Kathputli colony here.

Her husband, who made ₹7,000 a month as a taxi driver, lost his job during the lockdown, and she could no longer bring home ₹5,000 a month working in Nehru Nagar, a posh locality severely hit by the pandemic. So the couple bought a push cart and now sell leafy vegetables to feed their four children. But their earnings have dropped by half to ₹200 a day. “At least we are alive, and not starving,” said Ms. Tilwari.

Like her, thousands of women domestic workers in urban parts of Madhya Pradesh, faced with uncertain working conditions in view of the pandemic despite the easing of the lockdown, are turning to alternative livelihoods such as selling vegetables or construction work, which can be low paying options. The lucky ones manage to retain work at a household or two, forced to settle for lower wages, whereas others sit idle at home, waiting for households to call them back

Returning to their villages in Harda district, 180 km away, from where members of the Tilwari community, whose male members are mostly cobblers, migrated decades ago looking for better wages, is not viable. “Women don’t work as cobblers and we are landless. Going back to work in others’ fields, we came to cities to escape those exploitative conditions,” said Phoolwati Thackeray.

Women say the pandemic has “amplified untouchability” they faced at households. “We don’t get tea or water there any more, not even in separate utensils like before. Memsahebs fear coming too close to us. COVID-19 has compounded their fear of pollution from us through touch,” said Ms. Thackeray.

At New Ambedkar Nagar, Rina Dhurve has now settled to cook for ₹2,500 for a family, half of what she made earlier. She was told to not visit other households if she wanted to continue working there. “Nearly 50 of the 400 domestic workers in the colony have taken up construction work now along with their husbands,” said Jayshree Vakade, president, State Gharelu Kamgar Union.

If women construction workers made ₹300 a day before the lockdown, Jyoti Ginare can now make only ₹200 a day, with the real estate sector, itself floundering under the lockdown’s effects, saturating with workers. “I can only mix cement, lug sacks and carry bricks,” rues Ms. Ginare, who had to forsake the ₹9,000 she made earlier as a domestic worker. Engaging in skilled labour, as in masonry, would have fetched her better wages but for women not being allowed to take it up.

In Jabalpur, real estate contractors preferred old hands, said Deepa Parihar, a domestic worker. “Absence of public transport means we can look for work in only a two-three km radius, whereas construction sites are mostly on the outskirts,” she said.

However, in Indore, domestic workers were applying with the government to procure push carts to sell vegetables, said Maya Solanki, a worker. “The rich fear they may contract the illness through the poor,” explained Ms. Solanki, now earning just half of the ₹12,000 a month she made earlier.