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Hyderabad: Covid hammers sales
Representation photo
Local vendors hit hard for second year in a row
Hyderabad: Ugadi, the Telugu New Year Day, could not bring fresh spells in the lives of local vendors as the sales in the markets across the city remained nominal.
This could be because of the surging Covid-19 cases. The markets wore a deserted look with just a few buyers. Markets like Monda market, Ameerpet and Gudimalkapur had 60 per cent less footfall for the two consecutive years now.
Praveen, chairman, Gudimalkapur market said, "Though it's a sigh of relief for the regular vendors in terms of sales, those vendors who are dependent on festival sales observe a difficult time as the rich sales are far from their sight. Even the Ugadi essentials like neem, mango, jaggery, flowers and pots hardly had any customers."
"As the crowd is not coming out, we were already sure that the sales will not take place in an expected way. So, we have reduced the quantity of products to 60 per cent but out of it we could only manage to sell 40 per cent.
Compared to the years before Covid the sales have gone down drastically," said K Jagan, vendor in Monda market. Rythu Bazars, which always bustled with hundreds of customers, also remained hush.
There were times when an average footfall of the market remained 5000 on weekdays and 10,000 consumers on weekends but this Ugadi they were hardly 1500 to 2000 people, informed Sudhakar, Executive Officer, Rythu Bazar, Kukatpally.
"Since March 2020 there has been no surge in sales as hardly did people come. Gradually, the load from the districts is also declining," Sudhakar said.
This festival has always been celebrated with great joy, people would rush to the markets along with the children, but this year no children were seen as parents preferred 'jailing' them home.
"I always used to take my children for shopping but this time due to the escalating corona virus cases, I have locked my children home and have come alone for shopping and all of my friends and neighbours are also doing the same," said P Gayatri, resident of Bowenpally, shopping in the market for Ugadi.
