bengaluru working professionals have started offering paid leave to domestic helpers to minimise infection risks on all sidescoronavirus outbreak live updatesthe helpers can keep themselves safe by staying home without losing their job or income and their employers who are not going to office logging in remotely instead can further reduce outside contact and have greater control over the indoor environmentsome have paid the months full salary to helpers in advance and shared tips on staying healthy representatives of domestic workers welcomed the policy but said only a handful of households were offering such benefits the covid19 crisis they added had led to greater scrutiny of workers as they visit multiple placesstill early efforts to treat domestic helpers as a proper workforce by providing benefits that officegoers get are encouraging my wife and i started working from home this week and we thought our maid should also get the option to stay safe and limit social interactions we have paid her the months salary in full and asked her to stay at her home said naren srinivasan who lives in trifecta starlight mahadevapura since my wife and i are not going to office we can take care of the household workmanish jain a resident of smr vinay endeavour apartments said members of the complex had been advised to do the same its not a mandate but we are advising residents to give paid leave to domestic staff most people usually pay cash to the workers as everyone is avoiding stepping out we have taken the workers account numbers to transfer the salaries jain saidupender singh secretary of keerthi flora in brookefield said this was a winwin situation in difficult times last week we anticipated that the situation might get worse we had already requested society members working from home to give paid leave to their domestic staff this is a winwin situation in the time of social distancing singh saida flatowners association is creating awareness on coronavirus prevention among domestic workers at the apartment level we are trying to educate everyone about good hygiene practices said vishnu gattupalli secretary of bangalore apartments federationdomestic workers representatives inthe city said most maids and other staff were required to show up at households only a few get the option of paid leave employers are asking domestic helpers to repeatedly use hand sanitisers and not touch certain things its a challenging environment geeta menon secretary of stree jagruti samithi which campaigns for the rights of domestic workersmenon said the civic bodys advisory for residents welfare associations had no mention of domestic workers and security guards why doesnt bbmp ask the residents associations to give the option of skipping work without loss of salary to such staff one class gets to work from home while another doesnt get the same benefit she saidkashinath prabhu a member of citizens group bellandur jothege said it was urging residents to offer paid leave to helpers as everyones safety was important