Tea, juice vendors resort to selling fruits, vegetables due to lockdown

Several people, who earlier used to run tea and juice stalls in Delhi, have resorted to selling fruits and vegetables in order to make a living as all activities except essential services have been prohibited during the coronavirus lockdown.

However, essential services including fruits, vegetables, milk, groceries, etc are being allowed.

Most of these people, who are now taking up whatever job they can to make money, are migrant workers, daily wagers and laborers who used to run small businesses.

"I have been running a tea stall in Delhi since 1980. I am not going back to my hometown in Bihar because of the lockdown. I am going to get through the lockdown and start my tea stall again," Lakhan Mandal, who is a vegetable vendor now, told here on Saturday.

Mandal, who belongs to Bihar, said that his son was scheduled to get married on April 17 but they had to postpone the wedding to avoid a public gathering.

"Earlier, I used to sell sugarcane juice on a makeshift cart but now I have started selling vegetables. We are forced to run from one place to another with our carts to hide from the police," Ram Babu Choudhury, a resident of Bihar's Vaishali, said.

He, who has a wife and three children, said that it was getting hard to afford to live in the national capital with his entire family with reduced incomes.

"Before the lockdown, I used to earn around Rs 500 a day with my juice staff. But now, I can hardly make around Rs 200 to 300 a day selling vegetables," Choudhury said.

Subodh Sharma, Who earlier used to run a paratha stall, now sells fruits on a makeshift cart.

"I earlier used to run a paratha stall and earn around Rs 400 to 500 a day. I was sitting at home doing nothing for the first 20 days of the lockdown. But ever since the lockdown was extended, I had to start working again as I couldn't afford it anymore," Sharma said.

Lakhan Mandal, another vegetable vendor, said that earlier he used to run a tea stall in the Mayur Vihar area. "But ever since the lockdown, I was forced to close shop and sit idle at home. I have five members in my family. I can't afford to stay put. Even selling vegetables, I can't make even close to what I was making before," he added.

( With inputs from ANI )

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