Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Facing financial crunch owing to the present COVID-19 situation, a PhD holder in Madhya Pradesh's Indore has been forced to sell fruits on the street.
Raisa Ansari, who got her PhD in material science from the Devi Ahilya University, was employed as a professor at a college before the lockdown. However, she soon lost her job, and was forced to join the family business and sell fruits off a cart at Indore's Patnipura mandi.
However, when civic authorities on July 23 tried to remove her cart from the street as part of their 'left-right' scheme, where carts were told to operate on alternative days, Ansari opposed and got into an argument with the officials.
The video of Ansari expressing her agony in English soon went viral on social media.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Ansari said that the municipal authorities were behaving like "animals" and were very rudely chasing away street-vendors.
"The market is very dull. Nobody wants to buy fruits and vegetables from here. And now they are only allowing one side to open per day. The administration should be ready to plane keeping the vendors in mind," she said.
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Asked whether the authorities were justified in implementing the rule in wake of the pandemic, Ansari said even the livelihoods of small vendors like her matter.
"Before lockdown, we used to have 3-4 carts, now we only have one. The economic situation is very poor. Yes there is coronavirus, but our trade is also important," she said.
Ansari said she did not consider the job beneath her, and expressed a desire to research on COVID-19 if she gets the opportunity.
"This is okay, no work is bad. This is my family business, I have been selling fruits ever since I was in school," she said.
"I want to research on cancer and COVID-19. I also want to work on a vaccine. But the reality is that I'm here selling fruits due to financial conditions and personal problems," she added.
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