BE it rain or
shine, Jaspal Singh is always there. Standing stoically outside a
Balongi school with his tray of assorted candies. But there is
something that sets him apart from the other vendors. No, it’s not
his spotless clothes, or genteel manners, but that look of despair
he tries so hard to hide. Little do the children who call him o bhai
know that till three years ago he was a highly regarded senior
design assistant at Punjab Wireless Systems Limited (Punwire), a
‘sir ji’ to many.
‘‘It’s the ultimate humiliation, but I have a family to feed,’’
he shrugs. Jaspal is not the only one reduced to eking out a living
on the streets, there are many others whose lives came crashing down
the day Punwire was liquidated.
Praveen Kumar, a technical assistant who now goes door-to-door to
peddle undergarments, recalls the day he went to Sukhna Lake to
commit suicide. ‘‘It was the thought of my children that made me
change my mind,’’ he sighs. Life for him has become a battle for
survival. ‘‘The only reason we are not on the roads is because of
joint family,’’ he adds.
Vir Kaur, a former senior technician in Punwire whose husband is
disabled, doesn’t even have this cushion. So, after having tried to
make ends meet by buying a buffalo, she’s taken to selling
vegetables. But what has been truly heartbreaking is the decision of
her daughter, a Class IX student, to quit studies so that she could
help her mother by stitching clothes. ‘‘I’ve failed as a mother,’’
Vir sobs inconsolably.
For J N Bakshi, PS to Vice President-cum-Managing Director, the
closure of the company has meant a complete change of lifestyle.
‘‘Earlier, my wife and I used to bring home Rs 25,000, today we make
do with little over Rs 6,500.’’ Little wonder then that they have
been unable to pay the rent for the last 10 months.
Life for Sultan Singh, JE, and Amrit Prakash Kaur too has taken a
turn for the worse. ‘‘We just live from day to day,’’ says Sultan,
who’s exhausted his PF and other savings in paying the housing loan.
For Mohar Singh, a polio-afflicted technician, Punwire’s
liquidation has spelt an end to his family life. ‘‘I’ve sent them
back to my native village in Amritsar district,’’ says the man who
earns Rs 1,500 a month and lives in the tent where his fellow
employees have been on a chain hunger strike for the past two years.
‘‘I can’t face my wife and children like this, I’d rather die
here,’’ he says as others nod.
Hope does not float here.
Two years of hunger
It was on August 20 two years ago
that the beleaguered Punwire employees started a chain hunger strike
near Balongi bridge in Kharar tehsil. Shahid Ahmad, a service
engineer who’s been at the forefront of this Gandhian fight, says
they thought it would force the government to release their unpaid
salaries besides gratuity and other service benefits. But to date,
nothing has happened. The employees have also filed a case in the
Punjab and Haryana High Court. ‘‘We are seeking directions for job
security,’’ says Ahmed, adding that over 1,200 employees of Punwire
and an equal number from its subsidiaries are starving after the
liquidation for no fault of theirs.
