A livelihood lost

WHEN the water from the nearby nullah started overflowing, T. Rajasingh Nadar, knew something terrible was going to happen. He, his wife and two sons live in Orlem in the western suburbs of Mumbai, in a 10-foot-by-seven-foot room, which includes a kitchen and a small loft. The rain was coming down very hard that day. "I had never seen anything like that before. You could not see anything a foot ahead of you," he said. As the water started entering his house, he decided to evacuate his wife and sons. He could not afford to think of the storeroom near his home, in which he had stocked detergent bars worth Rs.3 lakhs. And he had no time to think of the small clothes shop he runs in the hutment area. His priority was to get his family to safety.

A small businessman, Nadar supplies soap bars to retail outlets. He had just received a consignment of soap that morning. When the water receded in the afternoon of July 27, Nadar returned to his house and storeroom to survey the damage. He was stunned to find that the soap bars in the storeroom could not be salvaged. Every bar was wet. "It was too difficult to move the boxes of soap without help as they were heavy. We did not have much time to save ourselves, let alone the soap."

"I came from Tirunelveli [in Tamil Nadu] 20 years ago. Through hard work, I was able to save and start a small business, which was doing quite well. But now I am ruined," he told Frontline. The soap company officials came and inspected the damage but Nadar says it is unlikely that they can do anything. "I will just have to start all over again with my savings."

Several such stories of loss of livelihoods are emerging from all over the city. To date there has been no talk of compensation or of making available loans on easy terms to people who have sustained losses. At least not for small businessmen like Nadar. The Reserve Bank of India has said that loans should be given on easy terms. But Nadar says people like him will not benefit from the bank's gesture.

The Maharashtra government has pegged the total economic loss in Mumbai at Rs.5,000 crores. Businessmen say this is an extremely conservative figure. "If you begin assessing the damage of all small businesses as well as big industry, the more realistic figure of losses would be somewhere between Rs.15,000 and 20,000 crores," an analyst says.