“Monsoons don’t fetch good business for me. Summer is the time when people come to my shop to have chilled lime sodas. But this year, because of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, I had to shut my stall for more than three months from March to June and we ended up spending all our savings.
Every day I station my cart near the Vijayawada – Nuzvid Bypass Road at 9:30 in the morning. My day goes on till 6 p.m.
Earlier, I used to earn Rs. 600-700 per day, but now, the earnings have dropped to Rs. 200-300 a day. A majority of my customers are employees who travel long distances, but due to the coronavirus outbreak and fear of Covid-19, a large number of people are avoiding the travel and the rest of them have started preparing their own health drinks at home.
I have three people to feed at home and it’s getting incredibly tough to make our ends meet. My daughter is now pursuing her Engineering and I wish she could work in a big office one day and be the first engineer in my family.
This virus is the biggest enemy for the small scale vendors like us. Even though we are trying our best to maintain all the hygiene standards, our customers have lost trust and confidence in us.
At the moment, I can only hope and pray that people taste the local flavored drinks instead of packaged drinks. As the prices of lemons have gone up, I am currently selling a glass of soda for Rs. 10, which I used to sell for Rs. 7 before. I have started offering sugandhi soda and sweet lime soda too, as people prefer something sweet along with the salty soda.”
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