The lockdown announced by state government in the last week of April 2021, to curb the spread of the Coronavirus has sent shockwaves across the Indian economy. Rural economies have also been in distress, with supply chains cut off and rising unemployment. The lockdown has had immediate and devastating effects on extra vulnerable women in particular and on other women and girls in general. Women’s unpaid labor has increased along with the anxiety to feed their families. With prevailing physical distancing norms to curb the spread of pandemic, economic and other activities have been affected badly. This has and will continue to have large scale impact on the extra vulnerable women in particular that includes people with disability, widows, pregnant women and lactating mothers etc.)
Mrs.Geeta aged 32 years and her family is one of them who has been affected the most during the present crisis of the Covid 19 pandemic. Mrs. Geeta a resident of village Rampur Khargi, block Ram Nagar, district Barabanki belongs from an extremely poor backward community. She has five children which includes three daughters and two sons. During the second week Covid pandemic, the youngest child aged three years got seriously ill suffering from severe diarrhea. The family could not get the child admitted in the government hospital during the lockdown. Due to demand of a huge amount in the private hospital the parents could not get the treatment in private hospital which consequently resulted in the death of the child. The husband of Mrs. Geeta is a rickshaw puller but due to lockdown, he has no job. The elder daughter Kanchan aged 17 years, a school drop out after passing class 8 had been supporting the family picking up the labor work but due to pandemic restrictions, she is not able to move to get the work.Mrs.Geeta somehow or other had been managing the family doing the domestic works in her village however a day came on April 22,2021 since when she did not get any work and it was very difficult for the family to feed the children.In this harsh situation, the family would survive only on food leftover from the neighbours. Seeing the pathetic and miserable condition of Geeta, people also hesitated to give loans too. Geeta’s family is going through mental and physicalproblems along with going through starvation in the lockdown. Bothof the spouse have lost their mental balance due to the death of their child.All the children of Geeta have become victims of anemia and malnutrition. Since the primary schools and ICDS centers were closed following the pandemic protocols, the children could not get the benefits of school mid-day meal and supplementary nutrition as well as. The PRASAR project staff have made attempts to get Geeta and her family the benefits of governments schemes and programs such as MGNREGA and PM Awas Yojana. Though Geeta could not get the MGNREGA card yet but they got listed under the beneficiaries of the PM Awas Yojana and hopefully, their home will be constructed soon. The family has also been linked with the PDS of the village for getting the ration under PM Gharib Kalyan Yojana.
The family has been also supported by the project with medical care through temporary health camps during the pandemic followed by lockdown with support of Sahyog, Lucknow under Covid Support Campaign. The family has also been benefitted with the ration kit under project’s Covid Relief Work
