Telangana: From homes to gold, teachers sell all to survive Covid crisis

HYDERABAD: A private Mathematics teacher by profession, V Nagesh is now spending his days selling dal, aata, chawal to locals turning up at his small kirana shop. He sold his one-room house to set up this store in Nalgonda. The MSc and BEd degree holder, with 16 years of work experience, had inherited the home from his father.
“But I had to clear loans that I had taken to get my three sisters married,” said 34-year-old Nagesh. “I was confident of clearing my loans with my salary. But since the school management has stopped paying since February-March and lenders were calling incessantly, I had to sell my house for Rs 2.2 lakh,” added the teacher who used Rs 60,000 from his corpus to start a kirana store.
“I am not being able to sell goods worth even Rs 5,000 -- the amount I have to pay towards shop rent. I have no money to buy my daughter books or pay her fee,” said Nagesh. If some have given up their homes, others have been forced to sell vehicles, gold and other belongings to run their households amid crisis.
“After lockdown started, I sold my bike for Rs 25,000 to clear EMIs. I was hopeful that I would get my dues soon. But it’s been six months and I have still not been paid. I even pledged my gold for Rs 30,000,” said Md Feroz Salman, a Telugu pandit working as a language teacher in a private school in Medak.
Maths teacher with a private school in Balapur, R Ramu Naik too had to put up his bike for sale, to meet his daily expenses.