“As a 19-year-old teenager I came to this city from Mallikarjunapeta in Guntur to earn a living. My father was a daily wage worker in a factory. Increasing debts drove me to take up a job to support my family at an early age. Some of my relatives and friends were auto rickshaw drivers in Vijayawada and I worked under them as an auto driver, before buying an autorickshaw on my own two years ago. It’s has been 17 years so far and by god’s grace everything was going on smoothly until the second week of March.
The last five months have been incredibly tough for me due to covid 19 outbreak. Earlier, I used to earn Rs 1000-Rs 1200 per day but now it has come down to Rs 300-400 per day. Even the share autos in this area were fewer back then and I had an opportunity to earn. The passengers at the railway station used to call me when ever they needed a ride. But the Covid-19 has deprived us of our livelihood. These share auto people have the liberty to ferry more than two passengers in their autos and charge 1/20th of what we ask from our customers so people are preferring to take share autos. We are getting very few rides and there are days when we hardly ply 15 kilometres. On LPG gas, we spend around Rs. 200 a day and our take home ultimately is hardly anything.
I have three daughters, who are all school-goers in Class 10, 8 and 6 respectively. We ended up spending all the savings to survive the lockdown and I am planning to take a loan to pay my children’s academic fees this year as I have no savings left. In the current situation, we can only hope for a better tomorrow and I am doing just that.”
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