Mail News Service
Jamshedpur, Jan 17: The increase in the cases of Corona across the country and the imposition of various restrictions by different states has had a direct impact on the business and economic activities across the country, due to which the business of various verticals of goods have gone down by a neutral average of more than 50% in the last 15 days stating that the total retail trade in the country is about Rs 150 lakh crore, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has asked the Central Government and the Chief Ministers of all the states to take all possible steps to prevent Covid from further spreading, but beside restrictions, the commercial and economic activities should also go on smoothly side by side, it would be better if keeping this in mind and after consulting with trade association across the country, the steps are taken to fight back the pandemic.
CAIT National Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal and National Secretary Suresh Sonthalia said that due to various restrictions of Covid-19, there has been an average decline of 45 percent in the business in the last seven days in Jharkhand and across the country. The out-of-town buyer is not going out of his city, whereas the consumers are also going to the market to buy goods only when it is really important. Thus, the business of the country has fallen badly, on which the central and all the state governments need to pay attention, said CAIT.
Khandelwal and Sonthalia informed that the “research organization of CAIT, the CAIT Research and Trade Development Society”, has conducted a second survey amongst the traders from January 1st to January 15th, in 36 cities of different states of the country, (which CAIT has given the status of “distribution center”), to find out the impact of the various restrictions imposed by the local administration due to the increase in the cases of Covid and what has been the effect. The survey findings have revealed that the country’s domestic trade has declined by an average of about more than 50% percent in the last week. The main reason for this decline is the panic among people due to the third wave of Corona, not reluctant mood of traders to come to distribution goods from neighboring cities, money crunch, large sums of money getting stuck in credit and imposing of various covid restrictions without consulting the traders
CAIT said that roughly 35% in FMCG, 50% in electronics,50% in mobiles, 35 % in daily consumption items, 60% in footwear, 35% in jewelry, 65% in toys, 70% in gift items, 50% in builders hardware, 50% in sanitaryware, 30% in apparel, 40% in textiles, 30% in cosmetics, Furniture 50%, Furnishing fabrics 50%, Electrical goods 40%, Suitcases and luggage 50%, food grains 30%,kitchen appliances 45%, watches 40%, computer and computer goods 35%,in stationery and paper 40%, is the estimated down fall in the business.
Sonthalia also informed that the business of the wedding season which began from Makar Sankranti from January 14 and in the coming 2 and half months, the wedding business of about Rs. 4 lakh crore was expected, but due to the various restrictions imposed by the state governments across the country a steep drop has been seen. Now it is estimated that in the next two and a half months in this business vertical, there is a possibility of business of about Rs 1.50 lakh crore which means a loss of about Rs 2.5 lakh crore in wedding season