MAHBUBNAGAR: The Covid-19 pandemic has hit most businesses, but the food industry seems to have been the worst-affected. A case in point is the dhabas (roadside eateries) along the National Highway-44 that have been shut since the first phase of the lockdown. For a special story on how these dhabas have been coping with the COVID-imposed lockdown, Express spoke to some of the owners and found that they have been in dire straits ever since the country shut down to contain the pandemic.
Over 220 dhabas dot NH-44, which is spread across 170 km of the undivided Mahbubnagar district, and each of these make `20,000 to `30,000 a day. The big ones, there are 60 of these, earn up to `5 lakh every day and employ 40 people. The small food joints, on the other hand, have a staff strength of about 15. Serving Telangana/Andhra and North Indian cuisines, the dhabas used to be busy as a bee before the country came under the grip of the novel Coronavirus.
The owners of these dhabas have been grappling with several problems in the last two months of the lockdown. Right from trying to ease the troubles of their staff — most of them migrant workers — to finding a way to pay back hefty loans, they suddenly have too much on their plate to deal with.
Some owners said they tried to look after their migrant workers during the initial days of the lockdown, but when it was extended, most of the staff left for their hometowns. Now, the owners are not sure if they would return.
The owner of the famous Munawar Hotel, Yahiya Khan, Bawarchi Hotel’s Ghouse and National Dhaba’s Aleem and Azmeer Hotel’s Fareed told Express that their workers’ financial condition is very poor. “We took care of them for some days. But we started to feel the pinch as the lockdown got extended. The workers had no option but to head back to their hometowns. This has caused more loss to our business,” they said. They are also worried about repaying the loans they took to run their business. They urged the State government to allow them to resume the operations.