‘What future can we build on Rs 9,000?’: The story behind plight of workers in Noida 

Back then, word filtered through factory floors that factories in Noida were paying nearly four times as much. “I heard from my friends,” Dinesh recalls. For workers like him, the promise of higher wages was a semblance of stability. He moved to Noida. His monthly salary rose to Rs 11,000.

For a time, it felt like a turning point. “At that time, we believed it was a decision that would change our lives,” he said. The expectation was simple: wages would keep rising, and life would slowly become easier. Three years later, he and his wife had a daughter.

But the promise did not hold. “Even when I did overtime, incomes almost remained stagnant,” he said.

The extra hours did little to change. “What looked like a life-changing decision became a struggle,” he said. As rent climbed, food prices rose, and even vegetables became a matter of calculation before purchase, the pressure deepened. “Now even dal is Rs 150 a kilo, and tomatoes are Rs 50 a kilo,” he said. “How should I send money back home?”

Eventually, the family made a difficult decision: they sent their daughter to Faridabad. “We could not afford the cost of raising a child in Noida, especially schooling,” he said. She now lives with her maternal aunt and attends school there.

Today, his income stands at around Rs 16,000 a month.Even then, he said, it is not enough. “With this income, I cannot sustain,” he said.

Over ten years, that amounts to an average increase of roughly Rs 500 a year. “That’s the reason why many labourers came onto the streets to protest for a wage hike,” he said. “We are in a desperate situation. The cost of living is rising, but our incomes aren’t.”

Dinesh did not join the protest that began on April 10 and escalated into violence on April 13. But his experience echoes a wider pattern among industrial workers in Noida, a city whose high-rise apartments and expanding real estate market tell one story of growth, while its factory floors tell another.

Official data underscores the contradiction. Gautam Buddha Nagar, which includes Noida, contributed 11.05% to Uttar Pradesh’s GDP in 2024–25, making it the state’s largest economic contributor by district. Yet wage growth has lagged far behind the income it helps generate.

Noida factory workers are grappling with stagnant wages and rising living costs, sparking protests across industrial units. (Express Photo/Abhinav Saha)

According to the Annual Industry Survey, the average annual wage of a worker in Uttar Pradesh rose from Rs 1.46 lakh in FY21 to Rs 1.76 lakh in FY24. Over the same period, salaries for supervisors and managerial staff climbed from Rs 11.85 lakh to Rs 15.05 lakh.

The gap is widening: modest gains for lower-paid workers, faster growth for managerial roles, and productivity increases that do not translate evenly across the workforce.

“Supervisors demand work to be done on 60 pieces for Rs 40,” Dinesh said. “If the people who earn in crores don’t have satisfaction, how can I? If they can earn in crores, why can’t they increase our salaries.”

Last week, the Uttar Pradesh government announced revised minimum wages. In Gautam Buddha Nagar and Ghaziabad, monthly wages for unskilled workers have been raised to Rs 13,690, semi-skilled workers to Rs 15,059, and skilled workers to Rs 16,868. The decision followed pressure from industry workers.

“Workers argued that rising living costs, particularly higher rents, have made it difficult to maintain a decent livelihood and that wages need to be increased,” said Dr M.K. Shanmuga Sundaram, Principal Secretary, Labour and Employment Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh. “Employers, on the other hand, said their businesses are under strain due to rising global tariffs, geopolitical tensions in West Asia, and recent labour unrest that disrupted supply chains.”

Dinesh lives in Naya Gaon in Sector 83, close to prominent export factories. Here, multi-storey buildings with dozens of rooms and visible cracks house Dinesh and many others who have come from neighbouring states such as Bihar. The lanes are filled with flies, as common washrooms outside the stacked rooms remain uncleaned.

A few lanes away lives a recently arrived family from Samastipur, Bihar. A loan of Rs 1 lakh forced 35-year-old Manju Devi to move with her husband and three children – aged 12, 10, and 5 – leaving behind two daughters who are still studying in high school in their village.

She has come home for a 20-minute lunch break. Soon, the electricity goes off, and she holds up her phone, using its flashlight as she eats dal, rice, and mashed potatoes. Racing against time, she says she comes home briefly each day only to check on her children, who have not been to school since they left Bihar.

“Though my 12-year-old takes care of her siblings, I’m always worried. My son is ill, and I spent a thousand rupees on his treatment. This room costs me Rs 3,500, and the ration is around Rs 12,000 a month,” she says, finishing her last bite.

Manju works on finished clothes, removing extra threads for Rs 12,000 a month. Her job runs from 9 am to 9 pm, and she has to stand the entire time. “I take medicines before work so that I can meet the hourly target of 60 pieces, as my legs hurt,” she says.

Piles of wooden sticks are stacked in a corner of the room, next to a thin sheet on which the family of five sleeps. “The cylinder got empty yesterday, and I cannot spend Rs 400 for a litre,” she says.

However, she remains unsure whether the government’s announced wage hike will ever reach them in reality. “I don’t know how much they have increased the prices. Only when we get our salary will I know,” she says.

For now, each day’s earnings seem to disappear as quickly as they come– into rent, food, medicine, and fuel – leaving little to save and less to repay the debt that brought her here.

One of the factories that witnessed a major protest was outside Samvardhana Motherson, a global design manufacturing company with multiple units in Noida. When the protest began, a 28-year-old woman from Sultanpur was still inside the factory premises.

She and her younger sister had joined the multinational firm out of financial necessity. Both come from strong academic backgrounds. The elder sister holds a B.Ed. and an M.A. degree and once aspired to become a professor. The younger has completed her M.Sc. and had been preparing for civil services examinations.

Their father met with an accident four years ago while working as an electrician and has been unable to work since. “My brother drives a taxi in Mumbai, but it is not enough,” the elder sister says. “That is why we both started working here.”

Two sisters from Sultanpur, one of them UPSC aspirant, who were forced to take up jobs. (Express Photo/Abhinav Saha)

The elder sister still works at Motherson, wiring harnesses on the factory floor. The younger sister, however, left the job two months ago. “I realised I cannot continue in such a physically demanding job,” she says. “With my education and skills, I believe I can find better-paying work”.

The elder sister earns around Rs 9,000 a month – sometimes less than unskilled workers, she says. “On April 1, HR told us our salary would be increased by Rs 30,” she recalls, a hint of disbelief in her voice. “How do you manage a cylinder that costs Rs 400 on that?”

Inside the factory, the elder sister describes long hours spent standing on assembly lines. “We are on our feet the entire time – on the sub-assembly line, ” she says.

Tea breaks come every two hours, she says, but production targets remain high. Food is another quiet grievance among workers. “Managers get proper meals,” she says. “For us, the dal is watery, and sometimes the chapatis have fungus.”

Her day begins at 4:30 am, followed by punching in and a morning briefing. She says she is not given salary slips. Meanwhile, her sister, after leaving the job, is now searching for work that better matches her qualifications. “There is a committee at every plant level that decides the menu for the week..they all eat from that same canteen,” a source close to the company said.

Anything that the government says we will abide by it without any delay. The organisation works paperless, and the money sent via bank accounts to both contractual and non-contractual workers are to be treated as the salary slip. We have a redressal mechanism as well,” the official said.

The sisters say the protest was not driven by outsiders. “When workers from one unit began questioning pay differences, tensions spread. Someone asked, ‘Is your salary too high?’ That’s how it escalated.”

For both women, the stakes are deeply personal. “My mother wanted to study but couldn’t because she was married young,” the elder sister says. “She made sure we studied.”  She pauses before adding, “But what future can we build on Rs 9,000?”

Back in their village, she says, neighbours still believe they are studying. “My father tells them that,” she adds quietly. “Otherwise, people would question why his daughters had to go out and work.”

Meanwhile, some normalcy returns after the protest, Dinesh sits outside his room waiting to return to work.

Last Friday marked their tenth marriage anniversary, a day they had once hoped to spend with their seven-year-old daughter. She is not with them.

Earlier in the day, she had called asking to be picked up. Now, her photographs hang on the wall of their room. Her mother looks at them and says quietly, “I try to go at least once a month for a day.”

Dinesh scrolls through his phone and opens his daughter’s school results. “She is very good at maths,” he says. After a pause, he adds, “I have told her to ask for anything she wants. I’ll make sure she gets it.”