Despite financial hardship, the dealers continue their service activities.
Vizianagaram Balaji Textile Market, one of Andhra Pradesh’s largest textile markets, has faced an unprecedented slump as sales plummeted and marriages did not end regularly due to the lockdown. The industry, which was hit very hard by the first wave of the coronavirus last year, saw a slight revival during the Diwali-Christamas and Sankaranti seasons. Almost all 305 stores looked abandoned during limited trading hours. On normal days, all internal streets were full of customers from different cities like Odisha, Kakinada, Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam and other places in Andhra Pradesh.
With the unfavorable ‘Mudham’ between February 1st and April 12th, sales fell significantly. Typically, sarees and other clothing purchases are completed three months before the start of the wedding season. However, the families did not buy them because of Mudham, which is considered an inopportune time for them to begin activities related to marriage. Otherwise, Crores’s worth of business was held here every day during the wedding season. This wedding season is the lifeline for all businesses to cover their expenses during a dull time.
The traders, who have been waiting for the May and June wedding seasons, were shocked by the sudden lockdown on restrictions on marriages. The government only allowed 20 people for each marriage, so many families had to postpone the wedding dates. Market president Buddepu Venkata Rao said that many traders have been in a deep financial crisis over the past year with stocks piling up. “It has become a Herculean task for traders to pay regular maintenance fees like rent, electricity bills and paying salaries to employees,” he added.
The Union Secretary Nirmal Kumar Pokarna said The Hindu that the wholesalers have faced immeasurable misery with the small financial transactions for the past five months. “The wholesalers who import textiles from Gujarat and other places should make payments immediately. However, we are unable to obtain collections from retailers in different parts of the North Andhra region. The embargo became a major challenge for us, ”he added.
Despite the financial hardship, the dealers continued their service activities at the suggestion of Vizianagaram MLA Kolagatla Veerabhadra Swamy. The association arranged beds in hospitals and provided needy patients with COVID-19 with oxygen bottles. Former Market President Praveen Kumar Anchalia and other members organized a blood donation camp in collaboration with the voluntary blood bank Rotary Parvati Devi Anchalia. He said the blood bank’s volunteers and traders were promoting plasma donation as it was necessary to save lives of many COVID-19 patients.