Omkar colony will probably qualify as the most ideal residential locality in Hyderabad in the present times. The settlement of about 700 houses lies in Miyapur, close to the IT corridor of the state capital. Narrow lanes with overflowing drains, muddy roads, trash deposits at different corners and small tin houses make up this slum. Sanitation and lack of proper drinking water are some of the problems dogging the slum dwellers, but COVID-19 is definitely not one among them. According to the residents of the slum, with a population of about 1200, there has not been a single case of COVID-19 during the second wave.
As the high end housing communities in the vicinity of the slum inhabited by the upper middle class and the high income group are ravaged by the pandemic, Omkar colony surprisingly looks untouched.
Given the occupation of the residents, this particular slum is at a high risk of contracting the virus. Many of the income earners here start their day early by venturing out and sweeping the roads and clearing the garbage off the streets. Apart from the sanitation workers of the city’s civic body, there are drivers and daily wagers residing in the slum.
“We are not worried about coronavirus as nobody has got it here,” said D. Rangaswamy, a local leader who also works as a driver for a heavy vehicle. “We wear masks and use sanitisers. We use salt water to gargle and stay outside in the sun as long as we can. We are confident of protecting ourselves.”
Rangaswamy said that recently many of the residents were made to undergo random testing and all the results turned out to be negative.
In the central part of Hyderabad is one of the largest slums in the city. Patigadda in Begumpet has multiple slum clusters which are home to a population of more than 50,000. Barring some sporadic detections, the slum looks quite insulated from the chaos. The ambulances are missing and so are the rumours of virus eating away families. Average size of occupants in some of the houses here, which is a mix of tin houses and concrete structures, is anywhere between 4 and 10.
“Last year, nobody here was seriously impacted by the virus,” said Fathima Hussain, a social worker. The mother of two stays with her husband in Narayan Jhopdi Sangham, a cluster of about 400 houses in Patigadda. “This year we had about four cases and that too of mild nature.”
In Fathima’s colony, there are also those who work in the hospitals but what is unheard of is any family getting the virus or needing hospitalisation.
“In the evening, we have a police team coming and warning us not to go out. We have stopped sending our children out to play. We installed a sanitiser machine for people to create awareness. It is very clear that nobody here fears the virus and we feel that it can be controlled,” said Fathima.
Bolakhpur is another area in Hyderabad which has a large presence of slums. The dozen odd slum settlements are home to thousands of families. Munawar Chand, convenor of an NGO, Basthi Vikas Manch, works closely with slum dwellers of Gulshan Nagar, Indira Nagar and Siddiq Nagar clusters to raise awareness on their rights and basic amenities. He narrated an incident which took place recently.
“Along with some people from the slums, I met a senior official of a government department. He tested positive for COVID-19 soon after our meeting. He accused us of passing on the virus to him. But, the fact is none of us had it. It is a wrong notion that viruses are prevalent in the slums and getting passed on to the educated and the rich.”
As per Chand’s observation, half of the locals don’t wear masks or use sanitizers but infections are rare. “Last time I don’t remember needing oxygen cylinders for any resident of the slum. There were no serious cases.”
Though there has not been any scientific study undertaken by the administration to understand this trend, public health experts and state health department officials believe that the conditions in the slums might have resulted in a greater resistance power thereby aiding in the fight against COVID-19.
