The wedding season has brought no cheers to the textile traders in the city. Business activity in the bustling markets of One Town has slowed down as a fallout of the demonetisation even after two long weeks.
With the temporary cash crunch, the wedding season has turned into a nightmare for traders. It affects close to 50,000 people who are either directly or indirectly dependent on the business in the city as some shopkeepers are already laying off hands.
The wedding season is the time when traders do most of their business but the lack of liquidity has led to problems. The reason: the traders have not yet adopted the modern practice of online payment. Most of the transactions here are done through cash.
A vast majority of the traders in One Town do not have online payment facility, which drives customers away. Despite strong competition from malls, the traders have so far managed to retain and increase their customer base. But, due to the cash crunch, the business has taken a severe beating.
It is like domino’s effect. The retail sales have plummeted as the customers are starved of currency and are spending the notes available with them only for emergency purposes. “As the retailers don’t have any business, the wholesalers also don’t,” reasons Vastralatha Cloth Merchants’ Association president Ch. Raghuram.
In fact, this is the worst year for the textile traders. There was a little business during the Sravana maasam, a wedding season, due to Krishna Pushkaram.
The business did not pick up much after the river jamboree.
The retailers place huge orders in December for Christmas and Sankranti. The festive mood is missing, says another trader.
The One Town is a hub of textile business with the Vastralata Complex and the Krishnaveni Cloth Market drawing retailers and customers across the State. A huge inventory of clothes and textiles arrivesfrom Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, and retailers from neighbouring districts too place orders here.
There are about 2,000 textile traders in the city. Of this, 407 shops are in the Vastralata complex alone, and most of them are into wholesale business. And, the nearly same number of shops are there at the Krishnaveni Cloth Market in One Town. The traders don’t disclose the actual volumes of business for obvious reasons. But business of roughly Rs.100 crore takes place everyday and the loss is estimated around Rs. 1,000 crore.
