T strike hits businesses hard - TeluguPeople.com News

Hyderabad: The ongoing 'Sakala Janula Samme' seems to have hit the textile business in the city. The strike by APSRTC employees and auto driver's bandh has added to their woes.

The total loss, in the textile business alone, was estimated to be over Rs 500 crore a day in the city. The other line of business that has been affected was gold, steel and restaurants. Though the shopping malls were kept open, there has been sharp decline in the number of customers.

During the Dasara festival season every year, cloth sales doubles up. Last year, the sales shot up from 2 crore to 4 crore per day. This year, total business registered in the last one week was hardly Rs 2 crore per day, said AP Textile Federation Association Convenor A Prakash.

Normally, during the festive season, small traders from neighbouring districts like Medak, Nalgonda and Ranga Reddy flock to the city to buy cloths and sell them in native places. Since the transportation facilities had come to a standstill across the Telangana region, the whole cloth business was also badly affected.

'Stocks have been piled up in the stores. They have no option but to wait for the restoration of normalcy in the city,' he added. Chandana Brothers manager S Smomeshwara Rao said 'readymade cloth business had dropped by 40 per cent in the last one week and 60 per cent in the last two days due to bus, auto and train bandh in the region.

It also affected the sale of gold ornaments and jewellery due to continuous strike. Though the prices of gold and silver have declined, there was no increase in the sales in the jewellery outlets'.

It was estimated that gold sales dropped by 30 to 40 percent as the customers from outside the city could not manage to come.

The big shopping malls have also not been excluded from the impact of the intensified Telangana movement. As a result, the number of visitors to the malls had reduced drastically.

The management of Shoppers Stop and Life Style said the petrol pump bandh called by Students JAC on Saturday affected the weekend business. The visitors, who owned cars, also did not turn up at the malls due to non availability of fuel.

Electronic goods and appliances centres would not reach their targets in the festival season if the same situation continues in the next one week.

The sales of electronic goods have gone down during the festive season. RTC bandh affected the business they get from outside the city. Around 20 per cent of the sales, contributed by the outsiders, were affected from September 19 when the TRC employees boycotted their duties.

Several restaurants complained that the number of customers had declined by almost 40 percent during last one week. 'As a result, we are forced to prune the menu,' SpicyHub Managar.