No electricity, residents of Noida slum stage protest against UP power firm: ‘We can’t sit inside our jhuggi in this heat’

A cluster of single-room hutments, the colony is home to 400 families of migrant workers — safai karamcharis with the Noida Authority, ragpickers, e-rickshaw drivers, daily-wage labourers, and house helps who work in the neighbouring high-rises.

The government says it cannot provide the colony with any amenities as it is unauthorised; the electricity supply was stopped after residents were found stealing it, it adds. Says UPPCL Executive Engineer Shivam Tripathi: “The land belongs to the Noida Authority. The colony dwellers’ claim on the land will grow stronger if provided with an electricity connection.”

Nearly three decades ago, migrant workers from Bareilly, Muzaffarnagar, and Moradabad in UP shifted here and set up a cluster of jhuggis. They mostly worked in nearby construction sites as labourers.

“The jhuggi is spread around 1,000 square yards and people have built 384 hutments,” says Ranjit Choudhary, 38, who was a cleaner at the neighbouring Mahagun Mezzaria society before the protests began.

Choudhary, who came here from Budaun in 2006, says he was removed from his job as he couldn’t attend his duties. He has now emerged as a leader of the protesting workers.

These huts have roofs made of plastic, tin sheets or khappar (ceramic roof tiles). The floor is made of soil, cement or broken tiles. Most of the material used are leftovers from the construction sites of highrises that the workers built and are now standing opposite their jhuggis.

“With no windows, no ventilation and no electricity that could run a fan or a light bulb, it is impossible to stay indoors,” says Chandani Chauhan, 24, who works as a domestic help at Mahagun Mezzaria, earning Rs 11, 500 a month. “I don’t want to return to my jhuggi. When I work (at the society), I feel like lying down under the cool breeze of the AC.”

For Shanti, an 80-year-old widow, the scale of the problem is even bigger. A ragpicker, she has been providing for her granddaughters, Choti, 3, and Gunnu, 6, after her daughter-in-law died during childbirth and her son, who “lost his mind” after his wife’s death, left home. “I don’t know if he is alive or not,” Shanti says.

She is trying to calm her granddaughters by waving a cloth fan. “The cloth fan becomes more effective if we wet it,” she says. “But the sun is so harsh during the day that nothing works.”

The protest, seeking restoration of electricity, has been organised by Ravinder Pradhan, 50, head of the Akhil Bhartiya Safai Mazdoor Organisation. “UPPCL officials need permission from the Noida Authority. The authority says they don’t grant such permissions,” he says.

Citing the example of the jhuggi in Noida’s Sector 50, he says, “They were given an electricity connection a few years ago.”

He further says, “We belong to the Valmiki community. We clean the filth every day so that people go on with their lives normally. They (authorities) think we are born to live in this filth.”

The workers say with no electricity and water supply, their children have been falling sick because of heat exhaustion.

“My son (aged 4) has fallen ill. When we took him to the doctor, he asked me to keep a cooler. There is no power, where do I connect it?” asks Kiran Devi, 32.

“My two daughters have epilepsy. Because of the heat wave, the frequency of the (epilepsy) attacks has increased,” says Ruby Devi, 35 who works as a domestic help in neighbouring Sikka society.

“We will protest until we get electricity. Our children are dying in this heat. Few of them are already in the hospital,” says Akhilesh Kumar, 40, who works as a delivery boy for a dhaba nearby. He says the workers do not intend to claim any rights on the land: “We are only demanding our rights as the citizens of this country.”

Ranjit Choudhary says they have made several requests to the Gautam Buddha Nagar district magistrate but to no avail.

DM Manish Kumar Verma, however, says it is impossible to give the colony electricity connections without proper infrastructure. “As occupancy is illegal, we cannot create an electrical infrastructure. If we continue like this, all the illegal occupations would get a legal blanket,” Verma says. “But we can think of a solution as people have been here for a long time and we can request for some policy changes,” he adds.