As an only child, Luxmi Nautiyal grew up in a protective environment, never venturing out to explore her environment alone. But once she joined IndiaUnheard, Luxmi surprised herself as well as her community by integrating so fully that she is now, as a Community Correspondent, a pioneering spirit bent on addressing environmental, educational, and children’s rights issues.

Luxmi Nautiyal

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With an average altitude of 1825 mts, Mussoorie, the Queen of the Hills, is sometimes quite hard on her subjects. Take for instance the cycle rickshaw pullers and porters who earn their bread and butter by ferrying tourists all around this beautiful hill station.

Luxmi Natiyal reports that most of these people work in tremendously challenging work environments and play a key role in maintaining the atmosphere of gaiety that surrounds this quaint town. Mussoorie does not provide any basic facilities to its cycle rickshaw puller or porters. Assuming that organizing themselves would help them improve their situation, close to 100 rickshaw pullers and porters formed the Majdoor Sangh. For a year and a half they tried to network with Foundations, Corporates and the Municipal Corporation to find alternate, sustainable livelihoods but to no avail.

Many of them say that though the Majdoor Sangh does help in uniting them in a time of crisis, their call for better fares and facilities from the Government has fallen on deaf ears. In absence of an alternate source of livelihood, today they just want a designated rickshaw stand with a place to sit so they may better serve the tourists who pay them. Let's hope the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun, Uttarakhand pays heed to needs to those who carry the Queen's burden.