kolkata with art colleges being shut the models who help students do life studies are in dire straits the government gives a monthly financial incentive of rs 1500 to them the situation is bad for most of the models who are out of work and have no regular income many of them are ageing and have to bear huge medical expenses too take the case of shobha biswas the 60yearold has had a long tryst with the government college of art craft she had started work at the age of 12 today she gets a financial incentive of rs 1500 but thats hardly enough for her her son who used to work in a company that deals with plastic can no longer go there because the local train services have been suspended all the models are at home our work is restricted to the colleges everything is shut and there is no hope of reopening in the near future we have been only doing life studies at my age what alternative do i have she askedsexagenarian phoolkumari das who is one of the oldest and extremely respected models in the art fraternity told toi that she has received rs 2500 from art college students that was in june she saidat the government college of art craft a model would get rs 850 a day for portrait studies their timing used to be between 10am and 4pm the rate would go up to rs 1000 if it involved nude studies according to pradosh paul who approached the chief minister for their pension scheme this trend of doing portrait studies with models in the painting department is on the decline before lockdown they would get at least 10 days of work in a month the numbers were higher earlier the syllabus is changing and the accent is less on model studies during our college days such studies couldnt be done unless we had models today many have access to internet and photographs last year i had collected money and created a fund and distributed it to 18 models to 16 of them we had paid rs 15000 for the other two male models we paid rs 10000 each the pension scheme is on apart from shobhadi and phoolkumaridi i have spoken to other models too i know how difficult their situation is during this lockdown i would urge art college teachers to take personal initiatives to help them paul saidaccording to indrani routh a student of rabindra bharati university both current and former students of three art colleges of the city have collected funds for 27 models in june we gave each rs 2500 however we understand that they need a lot more to meet their monthly financial requirementsbiswas is diabetic and needs insulin my legs ache because of long hours of standing the moment i lie down i have an excruciating pain in my legs i live in bandel my house is next to the railway station with trains