A wide variety of fruit juice stalls come up at all locations to cater to the needs of people during summer season. Of all these, sugarcane juice vendors occupy a prime place.
Besides doing brisk business during peak season, the vendors will have an opportunity to save for their lean season as well.
“When everybody looks for rest during summers, we become very busy. If we are afraid of the heat conditions, we cannot earn our livelihood for the rest of the year,” says N. Rambabu, a sugarcane juice vendor.
For these vendors in Nellore city, the cultivation of sugarcane in nearby villages has come as a big advantage. They directly buy in bulk at the farm field itself and bring it to the city to sell its extract as juice here.
Sugarcane is usually bought at Rs. 2,600 to Rs. 3,000 per tonne depending on the demand . The costs of loading and transporting all put together will come to nearly Rs. 4,000 per tonne by the time the raw sugarcane reaches the juice vendor point.
An almost uniform rate at Rs. 10 per glass is charged by the vendors. For each tonne of sugarcane, they get nearly Rs. 10,000 of which Rs. 3,000 will be their revenue.
There are instances of some vendors starting a chain of sugarcane juice stalls at different locations in the city. The heavy juice-making machine costs them Rs. 50,000 and it brings considerable revenue for one who is ready to toil through the summer heat conditions.
