Child Vendors Start Part Time Boiled Eggs Selling

MULTAN, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Dec, 2022 ) :With the advent of the winter season, the demand for boiled eggs has been soar and most of the child vendors have started their part-time work selling boiled eggs in the city and suburban areas.

Hundreds of school-going-age children turned to the seasonal business to support their families by selling boiled eggs. The child vendors can be seen hawking boiled eggs on severely cold and foggy evenings on the main roads, streets, and other public places like markets, railway stations and bus terminals. The girls and boys of about eight to ten years of age usually prefer city areas like shopping plazas, markets, and tea shops while the boiled egg vendors of teenagers and adults cover the bus stands and suburban areas of the city.

Talking to APP here on Sunday, a child vendor Usman said that he was eleven years old and his father had been four years ago. He said that his mother gave him three dozen boiled eggs each night through which he earned Rs 1250 daily. He said that he has two elder daughters and an elderly mother and earning from boiled eggs was the only source of income for the family.

Usman said that boy hostels were the main market of his business where all eggs were sold in two to three hours and then he returned home. He informed me that he was a student in the fifth class at a local government school in the morning.

Aliya, another child vendor said that she covers the wholesale market of medicines at clock tower chowk and sells more than two dozen boiled eggs daily. She said that some shopkeepers gave her extra money on a humanitarian basis. She said that she was not the only child vendor of her family as her two brothers were also doing the same work.

A teenage vendor Muhammad Akhtar at MDA Chowk told APP that he managed to earn some extra amount daily as most of the people paid him more than the actual price of an egg. He said that "it's far better to sell eggs than to beg. He said that he planned to expand his business in the next season by setting up a shopping cart at the chowk.

He also lamented that some of the boys refused to pay after taking boiled eggs and fled away on their motorcycles while some of them paid less than the actual price. He said that the business of boiled eggs requires less effort and investment while there were also zero chances of loss in this business.

It is pertinent to mention here that eggs were being sold at Rs 20 per egg at the shops while the boiled eggs were being sold at Rs 30 to 35 at different locations in the city. Some of the vendors informed us that they had sold boiled eggs at Rs 15 to 20 last year but now the rates in the open market have been increased.