Nagpur: Rajkumar Gupta — the kulfi seller is a known face in the narrow lanes near Gandhi Chowk, Sadar. Moving around with his handcart since he was a lad, now 51-year-old Gupta still needs to go on to make two ends meet.
“You are sensible enough to know what will happen to people like us, if there is another round of lockdown after April 2,” he says with a sarcastic smile.
Yet to recover from impact of the first lockdown, Gupta only sees hopelessness, if it happens again.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has hinted of another lockdown from April 2 or 3. As TOI talked to people who need to venture out each day to make a living, the very thought of a lockdown was nightmare for them.
“I also used to park my cart in front of schools in the day time, but schools were closed for the entire year. My earnings were already halved and now are further down due to the time restrictions in force these days. We can only manage because of our frugal lifestyle ” he says.
Every such vendor or a small time businessman TOI met complained of having lost nearly half of the earnings due to the time curbs. Another lockdown may only bring the worse, they said.
Manju Waghmare has been selling snacks near the divisional commissioner’s office since last eight years. “My blood pressure dips when I think of another lockdown,” she says. Just then a policeman arrives asking her to wind up as it was 4pm already. “I need to pay Rs7,000 as home rent, another Rs1,500 for electricity bills and then there is an EMI. My earnings are already down by Rs10,000,” she says.
Despite cops insisting, the vendors manage to stretch for another hour or so. Even the police remain polite. “Yes I have heard that there is going to be another lockdown soon. In that case I’ll have to sit at home. May be I will work at a construction site, if it is allowed, or go back to my village,” says Gaurishanker Prajapati, a sugarcane juice seller close by and a migrant from Rewa in Madhya Pradesh. His earnings this summer are already down to a quarter as compared to the times before Covid.
Vishal Rathore, a fruit vendor, says even now its difficult to recover the purchase cost, as much of the stock remain unsold and has to be discarded. Mohammed Nissar, a mask seller near Mount Road, says he has a large family to feed, and timing curbs have brought down his earnings to not more than Rs500 a day.
Trade associations on the other and are planning to take on the government if lockdown continues. “We will not pay the wages to our employees for the lockdown period, unless the government compensates,” said Ashwin Mehadia, president of Nag Vidarbha Chamber of Commerce (NVCC).
Dipen Agrawal, president of Chamber of Maharashtra Associations Industries and Trade (CAMIT), said the businessmen would accept a lockdown only if it its total, but not if only shops and other establishments are made to shut down.