Despite the statement by Home Minister Bhupendra Singh inviting Delhiites to use crackers in Madhya Pradesh, the businessmen dealing in crackers are facing hard time.
The cracker dealers feel that the customers are not approaching the shops like previous years. They blame GST for the slack in the market.
Markets which used to be flooded with new types of crackers have nearly no new items to offer as the traders are cautious and very selective after the introduction of new tax system. People want to spend less this time as it seems.
Daulatram Sabnani, president of Wholesale Fireworks association, Bhopal said that the biggest impact on the market was due to the increase in taxes in the form of newly implemented GST in which the tax rate has been increased from 14 per cent to 28 per cent. Doubling the tax has lead to the worsening of the scenario which was already witnessing slumping demand for the past several months after currency was absorbed in demonetization.
He said that it is next to impossible to continue selling the crackers with the GST rates imposed and the traders have to take call to compromise on their margins.
The sales have come down at the peak season and it seems improbable that sales would gain momentum in the next two days.
All the recommendations and rules by the Government are being followed without fail but what about the traders who have prepared for the festive season in advance and maintained huge inventories as they are now left with no room for adjustment and forced to sell their products at very thin margin or even in some cases without margin.
At around 3.30 in the afternoon there were only a handful of customers and it was not looking like a market welcoming festive season at all.
Irfan Khan of New Hindustan Cracker Shop said that from the day of opening of the market he had never seen such dismal sales and least number of customers. He aso said that he has no idea about other reasons. One reason may be that of People’s awareness about pollution.
When asked regarding the working day and afternoon could be a reason behind the fewer number of customers Irfan refused to accept the reason and claimed that every year at this point of the festive season, we would have to deploy additional employees to cater to the customers in the wake of high demand but the pace is really slow and has affected the business badly.