Pune: The assembly election has turned out to be a bonanza for some autorickshaw drivers in the city. Those lucky to be roped in for election work said that they are making almost twice the amount of money they earn on a single day, that too, by working for a few hours. "I am being paid Rs 2,000 daily, apart from free lunch.
I used to make this kind of money before the pandemic. Nowadays, I hardly earn Rs 1,000 daily, even after toiling from early morning till late at night," said Govind Kunte, an autorickshaw driver who campaigns for a contestant in the Hadapsar assembly constituency. Mohammad Rafiq Shaikh, another autorickshaw driver who lives in Kondhwa, said, "I am being paid Rs 1,300 just to move around in different localities from 7 am till 6 pm.
While I can earn money on regular days, the work hours are longer. However, I realise that this is just a temporary arrangement and very soon I will have to toil hard again," he said. Autorickshaws criss-crossing the streets with blaring loudspeakers might be considered a nuisance by some, but for auto drivers engaged by political parties, the opportunity, even if temporary, is a godsend, offering some financial relief.
Earnings of drivers of more than 1.70 lakh autorickshaws registered in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad plummeted significantly after the pandemic, forcing many of them to sell their vehicles or look for other sources of income. Nitin Pawar, the general secretary of Rickshaw Panchayat, the largest autorickshaw union in.