Helping The Help

Your domestic help could need more than just timely salaries and occasional loans to tide over financial crunch. Preeti Kulkarni outlines steps you can take to improve the quality of their financial lives

- Preeti Kulkarni

While most of us survived the tough days of cash crunch during demonetisation using our plastic cards and digital wallets, the ones who suffered the most were the informal sector workers who accept most of their payments in cash. Without a basic savings account in the bank, most of them use the piggy bank approach to savings which often lands them in sticky situations where their money lies idle, also losing its value over time due to inflation.

For most individuals who employ domestic help at their homes, helping them in times of need rarely goes beyond paying salaries in advance, lending money in times of need or paying their children’s school fees.

Taking the lead

While such acts are commendable, Mumbai residents Priya Nair-Malviya and Garima Devrani have gone a step further to truly transform the lives ofpeople they employ at their homes.