Kathmandu

The Cabinet’s meeting of May 6 has allowed for motor garages to open from May 8, not all workshops and garages are open completely because of the COVID 19 pandemic. As such commuters, mostly those involved in emergency and essential service sector, are getting their vehicles repaired at workshops/garages on a personal contact basis.

At dusk on May 10, Rupesh Thakur, delivery staff rom Jeevee Health was heading to Duwakot, Bhaktapur to deliver medicine from his office at Lazimpat. When he tried to turn on the headlight, it didn’t work. He’d just reached Baneshwore then.

“It was not dark when I left office, so, I didn’t check whether the headlight was working or not,” Thakur said.

He rode the scooter at low speed without any light to reach his destination. But returning was another story as it was nighttime by them. Thakur said that if auto workshops were open nearby, he would have got the headlight mended and gone for other delivery runs too.

The company’s Manager-Pharma Operations Santosh Thapa said that they have faced problems like puncture, flat tyres among others while doing deliveries that they do from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm. He said he has been referring his staff to their regular mechanic at Samakhusi for any vehicular problem, which remains open for a few hours only to provide maintenance service to the staff in the lockdown. Thakur got his scooter repaired at the same workshop.

Dr Anil Kumar Yadhav (Health at Home) also suffered a punctured tyre when he was on the way to Sanepa on a house call. “My bike got punctured in Kharibot. Luckily I found a small workshop with shutters just a wee bit open. If not then I’d have had to drag my bike in the sun.”

He said the mechanic took his bike inside and mended it shutting the shutter completely.

Photojournalist Sagar Basnet spent around 30 minutes trying to find an autoworkshop to fix his flat bike tyre.

“I went to Teku thinking there are many authorised dealers and workshops for different vehicles and it would be easy to get my bike fixed. However, I could not find any workshop open there,” he said.

Basnet was finally able to get his bike fixed in a small shop at Uttar Dhoka as recommended by his friend.

Yuba Raj Lama of TVS Namo Buddha Workshop, Old Baneshwore observes that most commuters during the lockdown are those belonging to the essential service sector, and they come to his workshop through personal contact.

“I open my workshop for familiar customers, and also for those who travel for emergency or essential services. Mostly they visit for inflating tyre, changing the tyre and mobil and other minor repairs and maintenance,” he says.