SPH pays tribute to newspaper vendors

Singapore

A DAY after the "circuit breaker" was announced in April last year, Selvarani Chidambaram received a phone call from her husband just after four in the morning. On the other end of the line, Ms Selvarani's husband was panicking.

"All the workers cannot come, I don't know what to do. How are we going to deliver the papers?" he said.

The husband-and-wife duo have been newspaper vendors for 20 years now. Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, they employed 17 people who delivered papers to some 2,000 places in the West -- across areas such as Tuas and Jurong West.

But on that day, these 17 were unable to report for work. Some were migrant workers unable to leave their dormitories. Others were senior citizens who had been advised against going out.

Ms Selvarani immediately enlisted the help of her two daughters and two sons, as well as her son-in-law.

But a job that would have taken two to three hours ended up taking six hours. And by 11am, when all the deliveries were completed, some of Ms Selvarani's children still had to rush to work.

Said Ms Selvarani: "It was really unexpected and (we were) unprepared... We didn't think it would be so serious. It's like a panic rush.

"My customers were all calling me, my phone kept on ringing (and they) were asking why the paper was not here."

Ms Selvarani said the difficulties were alleviated slightly after Singapore Press Holdings (SPH)'s circulation department stepped in and introduced the idea of letterbox deliveries.

Vendors currently deliver the papers of some subscribers to their letterboxes, instead of to their doorsteps.

Ms Selvarani and some of her family members continued helping out with the delivery till end-May.

Today, she and her husband have about 15 workers - a mix of new workers and those from her original pool of workers - doing the delivery instead.

While operations have yet to return to normal, Ms Selvarani said that they are "much better" now as compared to April and May, and the delivery process has also been a lot smoother.

• To celebrate the hard work and contribution of our vendors, SPH has produced a video to pay tribute to them. The video can be found at this link: bt.sg/4rNp