KORAPUT: Necessity is the mother of invention. For a fruit vendor of Koraput town, A Kiran Kumar, this old adage holds true in these times of crisis. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he is the first vendor in the town to market “sanitised” fruits. And for the purpose, Kumar has created a herbal sanitiser which he rubs on the fruits before selling them to health conscious people.
After the lockdown, although supply of fruits to the town was normal but sales were down as people focused only on buying vegetables and grocery. Besides, some people were skeptical about eating raw fruits fearing infection.Kumar, like the other vendors, suffered huge loss for a week as his fruit stocks perished in the absence of buyers. That is when the idea of sanitising the fruits stuck him.
He prepared a homemade herbal sanitiser using three ingredients - aloevera gel, lemon juice and a small amount of Neem oil. “I got to know about the technique of preparing a herbal sanitiser from YouTube videos. There is no side effect of this sanitiser as it is made of only herbal products”, says Kumar, who also sanitises his hands before selling fruits to people and advises them to wash the fruits only with running, clean water before consumption.
Before selling the fruits, he dips them in hot water for a minute and sprays the sanitiser on them before packing in paper bags. “The sanitisation process takes just three to five minutes and customers are ready to wait. They are willing to buy fruits that are safe from any contamination”, says the vendor, adding that this has now helped him improve sales.
Kumar sells fruits from 8 am to 11 am daily and in these three hours, his sales exceed `3,000. Earlier, the profit margin was just `400 per day. In fact, he now has a group of dedicated buyers. One among them is D Ashok who feels buying sanitised fruits is way safer than purchasing the regular ones.
Chief District Medical Officer Makaranda Beuria said the herbal sanitiser has no harmful impact on the fruits as it is made of natural ingredients.