Festive fervour eludes Delhi's traders, as cracker ban marrs sales

Diwali will lack the festive mirth for traders of Delhi's wholesale markets, this time. While most of them were still recovering from the lasting effects of demonetisation and the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Supreme Court's order of banning firecracker sales in Delhi-NCR came as a blow to their business.

According to the traders of the city's largest wholesale market Sadar Bazaar, the business this time is the worst in the past five years. "For us, Diwali is that time of year when we earn maximum profits. But this time, the sales aren't even 50 per cent of our usual figure," said Vaibhav Singh, who owns a shop of decorative material.

For traders, who have been dealing in firecrackers for the last 20-25 years, the festival of lights has a grim story to tell. "Until last month, we were planning to stock gift packs this Diwali, given the ban on the sale of firecrackers.

But, soon after the apex court lifted it temporarily a fortnight ago, we stocked crackers using our savings, just to reap maximum profit during the festivities," said Harjit Singh Chhabra, Head, Sadar Nishkarm Welfare Association.

"Forget profit, the ban has dealt a massive blow to our business. We are in ruins, with losses running into crores," he said. Chhabra is the third generation of his family dealing in the business.

Around 500 temporary licences were issued in Delhi-NCR, of them 24 in Sadar Bazaar. As per the traders, each of them had procured stocks of at least Rs 5 lakh. That means crackers of around Rs 1.2 crore will go waste in Sadar itself. And the losses will be much higher if we account for the traders across Delhi-NCR.

Sitting few shops ahead was Pammi Singh, who owns a famous apparel store in Sadar Bazaar; he was playing games on his mobile phone to pass time. "We generally don't get time even to check our phone during this season. Look at us now! It's 12:30 and not a single customer has walked in yet," he said.

His sentiment found a wide echo in the area, with most of the traders holding the introduction of GST responsible for it. "Traders from across the country used to come to Sadar, especially during the festive season to buy goods at wholesale rates. But, after the introduction of the centralised tax system, we have lost even our permanent customers," said Aachal Jain, another trader.

To understand the reason behind the traders' woes, DNA spoke to some customers visiting the market. "Shopping pattern of customers was highly affected by last year's demonetisation. We are not even spending half of what we did last year, as we don't have cash," said Sandeep Singh, a resident of west Delhi's Karol Bagh area.