Saturday, 24 October 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
Amid the festive season in Dehradun, the numbers of people visiting the marketplaces have increased in the last few days. The shopkeepers said that they expected the footfall to be less in the market than last year but surprisingly only half of the crowd arriving in marketplaces is actually shopping for the necessary items for the festivals. “The arrival of people has definitely increased in the last few days than the last week but it is still less than the usual shopping days of the last year. People are buying ingredients to make Prasad on Ashtami and Navami but they are not buying things like decorative plates, gift sets or small red religious scarves which are generally given to young girls in Kanya Pujan,” said a Paltan Bazaar shopkeeper Yogesh Sharma. Moreover, some shopkeepers also held the recent anti-encroachment drive in the market areas responsible for the reduced arrival of customers besides the ongoing construction work for the Smart City project. A local shopkeeper Nandan Patil said, “The conditions were already bad due to ongoing construction work of the Smart City project but the demolition of encroachments made it worse. The dusty buildings, lying concrete and under-construction roads in the market areas are doing a great job of scaring the customers away.”
Moreover, the shopkeepers also said that the sales are better than the usual market days and only those customers are sold the items who are wearing masks and maintaining physical distancing with others. They further added that police are also active in many crowded places in the markets to ensure that all the Covid protocols are being followed by people.
Meanwhile, the president of Doon Valley Mahanagar Udyog Vyapar Mandal (DVMUVM), Pankaj Masson also stated that the anti-encroachment drive was an ill-timed plan which is causing considerable loss to the local shopkeepers in this festival season. Though he said that this drive has ruined the business of several people in the city, he still expects that the situation will get better by the Diwali festival next month for the local businessmen.
