Sellers of new year items look grim faced, curse hartals

Salesmen at a cloth store on North Circular Road in Thakurgaon town pass idle time yesterday as the market area hardly sees any customer during the fourth consecutive day of hartal enforced by a few political parties. PHOTO: STAR

Frequent hartals enforced by opposition parties badly affects business of saree and readymade garment shops and boutique houses, especially during the peak selling season ahead of Pahela Baishakh, the biggest local festival of the Bangalees marking the first day of Bangla new year.
During a visit to the shops and boutique houses of North Circular Road, Old Bus Stand areas and markets of Thakurgaon Railway Station in the municipality area yesterday, this correspondent saw several shop owners and employees passing idle time beside their shut down shops amid hartal for the four consecutive days.
"Like previous years, clothe traders have stocked sufficient amount of items including saris, salwar-kameezs, and fatuas with hope to sell ahead of Pahela Baishakh. But they are losing the peak selling period due to political unrest and frequent shutdowns," said Sohrab Hossain, owner of Pakija Printing Saree on North Circular Road.
"I have stocked clothes worth Tk 10 lakh ahead of Pahela Baishakh but failed to sell Tk 2 lakh although only two days remain before the festival," he said.
Chandana Das, owner of Karupanya, a popular boutique house in the town, said he has made 2000 pieces of boishakhi dress including saris, salwar-kameezs, fatuas and baby wears with hope to sell before Pahela Baishakh but he is yet to sell 500 pieces. This year I have to count huge loss as the dresses are not suitable for other seasons.
"Last year I sold over 1700 pieces of different items of clothes during Pohela Boishakh and had to turn down many other customers as the demand was very high," she added.
Santosh Agarwal, owner of Santosh Bostraloy, a famous three-piece and saree store in Thakurgaon Station area, said this season their sale dropped drastically as hartal and unrest badly disturbed their business.
Md Masud, owner of a small shop, said now he can hardly expect even the recovery of the monthly expenditure including shop rent, employees' salary, and electricity and telephone bills as the sale saw serious fall due to hartal.
Dressmakers are also frustrated as they got only a small number of orders for making dresses ahead of the traditional festival.
Md Shafiqul Islam, president of Alpana Sahitya Sangsad, organised Boishakhi Mela on the occasion of Pohela Boishakh at Public Library premises during the last 25 years.
"In previous years, about 200 stalls of different items including handicrafts, books, boutiques, cottage items, foods, toys and others were set up at the mela. But this time we have received only 86 applications till today [Thursday] as traders from other districts including Dhaka, Bogra and Jessore are not interested to come, fearing very small presence of visitors and buyers due to political unrest," he said.