Tirupati: Covid hits hard cloth business

Tirupati: Several days even after lifting of lockdown, people are avoiding to visit cloth shops or malls to purchase clothes or readymade garments due to fear of being attacked by the dreaded disease and as a consequence, cloth merchants are facing hardships without the business in temple city Tirupati. Cloth and readymade dress sales are one of the main trades in the city. Several persons are showing interest for buying readymade dresses through online business portals like Flip Cart, Amazon and Myntra. It may be noted that the Government had given its nod to resume cloth business from June 8. But they are not getting business as was in earlier days and traders are facing financial hardships.

Almost every cloth merchant had invested some lakhs of rupees on cloth business and they have to pay thousands of rupees as shop rent and salaries for staff. Air Bypass Road, Gandhi Road, T.K Street and VV Mahal Road are noted for cloth business in the city. More than 300 cloth and readymade shops and big malls are affected by Covid-19 scare as the traders are facing tough time without business. The companies are not sending new design shirt and pant clothes as well as sarees to local cloth merchants due to continues lockdown and unavailability of workers in textile mills.

Few shopping malls owners had invested crores of rupees on cloth business as part of the competition with counter parts. Now they are not in a position to bring new stocks from textile factories which were located in Surath, Chirala, Mumbai, Tiruppuru (in Tamil Nadu), Delhi and other places due to financial crisis. On the hole total 20 to 25 crores investments were stuck in the form of cloth stocks at godowns. Merchants have to clear old cloths stock from shops for having running capital.

A cloth merchant in Gandhi road, S LakshmiNarayana said that he has to pay salaries to three or four staff, electricity bills and other maintenance expenditure. Due to the Coronavirus threat he has lost business drastically.