Mobile food stalls help migrants stay afloat during COVID-19 pandemic

ONGOLE: Mobile food stalls have become the new source of livelihood for construction workers who returned to Prakasam from Hyderabad and other places in Telangana when the reverse migration crisis hit the entire country earlier this year. Several from rural parts of the district have now become the owners of roadside eateries in towns closest to them. 

Forty-year-old Ch Srinivasa Rao is one among them. He used to migrate to Telangana every year for work, but was forced to come back to his home in Maddipadu in the second week of April.

After a week of joblessness, he, with the help of his wife Lakshmi and mother Sarojamma, started a food stall there. However, he was forced to shut it only 10 days later as the Covid cases grew in the region, eventually leading to imposition of stricter lockdown restrictions.  

“Later, I worked at a mobile chaat stall at S Konda near Addanki, where I earned `150-`175 per day. However, as Covid-19 cases were reported there, I lost the job and returned to my native in August,” Srinivasa Rao said.  

Now, he owns another mobile food stall and does business at Mangamuru Road and South Bypass Junction in Ongole with the help of his family and two cousins, Srinu and Venkat Rao. He makes an average of Rs 2,000 per day. 

“I used to go to Hyderabad every year as a construction worker for Rs 1 lakh per year contract. Due to lockdown restrictions, I became jobless in April. Finally, I bought a second-hand vehicle on installment for Rs 40,000 from a friend and modified it as a mobile tiffin centre,’’ he said.

Not just Srinivas, but a number of migrant workers who lost their jobs to the lockdown are now running similar eateries in urban areas of the district. 

“In view of the precautionary measures put in place after the pandemic, civic staff are regularly conducting inspection at the newly set up mobile tiffin centres. The owners have been asked to maintain cleanliness and ensure physical distancing at their stalls,” Mohan Rao, Ongole municipal corporation assistant commissioner, said.