In Pictures

Photos: Sri Lanka female rickshaw driver’s long wait for fuel

Lasanda Deepthi is one of millions of Sri Lankans battling galloping inflation and huge shortages of fuel and medicine.

A passenger pays Lasanda Deepthi, 43, an auto-rickshaw driver for local ride hailing app PickMe, after they got dropped off at their destination in Gonapola town — A passenger pays Lasanda Deepthi, 43, an autorickshaw driver for local ride-hailing app PickMe, after they got dropped off at their destination in Gonapola town, on the outskirts of Colombo [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Lasanda Deepthi, a 43-year-old Sri Lankan woman, plans her day around fuel queues.

The driver of an autorickshaw on the outskirts of the commercial capital Colombo, she keeps a close eye on the petrol gauge of her sky-blue three-wheeler before accepting a job to make sure she has enough fuel.

When the needle is close to empty, she joins the line outside a gas station. Sometimes, she waits through the night for petrol and when she does get it, it costs two-and-a-half times the amount it did eight months ago.

Deepthi is one of millions of people in Sri Lanka battling galloping inflation, falling incomes and shortages of everything from fuel to medicine as the country reels under its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948.

A female autorickshaw driver is a rare sight on the island of 22 million people off the southern coast of India.

But it is a job Deepthi has done for seven years to support her family of five, by using local ride-hailing app PickMe.

Since the financial crisis hit, she has been scrambling to find adequate petrol and earn enough as rides dwindled and inflation surged past 30 percent year-on-year.

Her monthly income of about 50,000 Sri Lankan rupees ($138) started falling from January and is now less than half of what she used to earn.

“I spend more time in line for petrol than doing anything else,” Deepthi said. “Sometimes I join a line about 3pm but only get fuel about 12 hours later.

“A couple of times I made it to the front of the queue only to have the fuel run out,” she added as she made tea in her small, two-bedroom rented house in Gonapola, a small town on the outskirts of Colombo. She lives there with her mother and three younger brothers.

She is separated from her spouse and has a married daughter.

In mid-May, Deepthi said she spent two-and-a-half days in a queue for petrol, assisted by one of her brothers.

“I don’t have words to describe how terrible it is,” she said, “I don’t feel safe sometimes in the night but there is nothing else to do.”

Lasanda Deepthi, 43, an auto-rickshaw driver for local ride hailing app PickMe, goes through her log book of expenses at home in Gonapola town — The roots of Sri Lanka's current crisis lie in the COVID-19 pandemic, which devastated the lucrative tourism industry and sapped foreign workers' remittances, and populist tax cuts enacted by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's administration. [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Lasanda Deepthi prepares breakfast in the kitchen at home in Gonapola town, on the outskirts of Colombo — Deepthi wants to visit her three-month-old granddaughter but is not sure how she can travel 170km (105 miles) to the seaside town of Matara where her daughter, a nurse, lives. [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Lasanda Deepthi, 43, an auto-rickshaw driver for local ride hailing app PickMe, has a container filled with petrol during the early hours of the morning at a fuel station in Gonapola town, on the outskirts of Colombo — On most days, Deepthi's mission is to find petrol, prices of which have soared 259 percent since October 2021, as the government slashed subsidies to try and stabilise a teetering economy. [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Lasanda Deepthi, 43, an auto-rickshaw driver for local ride hailing app PickMe, cleans her auto-rickshaw in Gonapola town, on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka — The car she bought with her savings had to be sold last year after she fell short on lease payments. A second autorickshaw, usually driven by one of her brothers, needs repairs, which the family can barely afford. [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Nuwantha Kasun Jayathileke, 30, brother of Lasanda Deepthi, 43, an auto-rickshaw driver for local ride hailing app PickMe, buys eggs from a shop in Gonapola town, on the outskirts of Colombo, — Nuwantha Kasun Jayathileke, 30-year-old brother of Lasanda Deepthi, buys eggs from a shop in Gonapola town, on the outskirts of Colombo. [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Lasanda Deepthi, 43, an auto-rickshaw driver for local ride hailing app PickMe, feeds her dog outside her house in Gonapola town, on the outskirts of Colombo, — "I can barely afford enough rice and vegetables for my family," Deepthi said. "I can't find medicines my mother needs. How will we live next month? I don't know what our future will be like." [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Lasanda Deepthi, 43, an auto-rickshaw driver for local ride hailing app PickMe, talks to other drivers as they wait in a queue to buy petrol at a fuel station in Gonapola town, on the outskirts of Colombo — Lasanda Deepthi talks to other drivers as they wait in a queue to buy petrol at a fuel station. [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Vehicles queue to buy petrol at a fuel station in Gonapola town, on the outskirts of Colombo. [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

People stand next to their motorbikes as they queue to buy petrol during the early hours of the morning at a fuel station in Gonapola town — People stand next to their motorbikes as they queue to buy petrol during the early hours of the morning at a fuel station. [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]