No longer a driver, I now sell veggies on a bicycle: Cabbie

TIRUCHY: The rise in fuel prices couldn’t have come at a worse time for autorickshaw drivers and app-based cabbies, who are yet to recover from the impact of the lockdown.

"If one litre of petrol costs over Rs 100, how can I make a living? All that I earn goes into buying petrol and servicing my vehicle. The price hike has ruined my life," said Guru, an autorickshaw driver from Tiruchy city.

For app-based cabbies dependent on private companies to assign them rides, the situation is no better. Convenience fees and operating costs are gobbling up almost all their earnings. "The convenience charge for companies such as Ola and Uber keeps increasing every other month and the increasing cost of petrol and diesel is not helping. We invested so much money to buy cars so we could feed our families.

But this inflation, along with the rising cost of maintenance, is driving us out of this business and forcing us to do menial jobs to earn a living," said Karthi, a cab driver. For some, driving as a profession has become unsustainable, as evidenced in the case of Ganesh, a driver and a resident of Edamalaipatti who had to turn to selling vegetables to eke out a  living. 

"There are fewer customers seeking drivers as most people are no longer in a position to afford both petrol and a driver. To sustain my family, I had to start selling vegetables on a bicycle. We hope that those in power reduce the prices keeping the people's difficulties in mind," said Ganesh.