A group of visually impaired hawkers has been selling use-and-throw pens made of paper in local trains and making a livelihood out of it.
Two NGOs working with the group have bought the pens — priced at Rs 4 each — at Rs 2 each. A college student makes the pens that the hawkers sell on trains. In May alone, the group sold 30,000 pens.
The idea is to make people aware that the visually impaired are conscious about the environment, too.
Our aim is to make the visually impaired self-sufficient, independent and help them lead a dignified life, said Biswajit Ghosh, secretary of Society for the Welfare of the Blind, which started the initiative.
“Not all of the visually impaired are highly educated but that does not mean they cannot earn on their own,” said Ghosh.
Society and another NGO, Petals, started the initiative jointly. Their target is for the hawkers to sell 50,000 pens in a month.
One of the hawkers with the pens Sourced by The Telegraph
Society approached hawkers on different routes.
“Not all hawkers sell pens and we selected a few of them on different train routes like Basirhat and Bongaon. If multiple hawkers sell the same product on the same route, the sale is less. But this way they will not have competition and be able to earn more,” said Ghosh.
The sales pitch for the hawkers is that the pens are not made of plastic but paper, which does not harm the environment, Ghosh said.
“It is a new item for the passengers and they want to try it. I tell them the benefits of it and many have bought it from me,” said hawker Shibnath Dey, who lives in Duttapukur, North 24-Parganas. He has been selling the pens on a local train on the Sealdah-Bongaon route.
Ghosh said that some of the hawkers have exhausted their stock and asked for more.
“A college student who has a small start up has been making these pens and we bought from him at Rs 2,” said Ghosh.
Many of these hawkers’ livelihood was impacted in the pandemic-induced lockdown when trains were not running.
“There are some who had to resort to begging. Our effort is to stop them from doing that,” said Ghosh.