Traders and shop owners in the capital, yet to cover losses of the last year, face uncertainty again due to the government’s plan to enforce a countrywide strict lockdown from April 14 to control a surging virus transmission.
Shop owners across the country have been experiencing inconsistency over the last few days regarding the opening of their shops. The government imposed a weeklong lockdown from April 5, with orders to keep the markets and shopping malls closed across the country to control the spread of coronavirus.
The government allowed markets and shopping malls to reopen from April 9 as shop owners in Dhaka and several other places across the country staged demonstrations demanding to keep their shops open amid the government restriction on public movement and transport.
The country was under complete lockdown during this time in the last year as well. The shop owners sustained losses to a great extent missing the Eid sales as markets and shopping malls were closed. They were hoping the sales would pick up this year as things had started getting back to normal since February.
The manager of Jamuna Future Park’s Le Reve outlet said, “We were hoping to recuperate last year’s losses this year with the upcoming Pahela Baishakh and Eid. The production targets were fulfilled taking into account these occasions. But with the ongoing and upcoming lockdown it seems like we are back to square one.”
Talking to Bangladesh Post, Bangladesh Dokan Malik Samity President Helal Uddin said “the small trade owners have already incurred significant loss of business and lost all of their resources last year. We are not even being able to predict the disaster that will be brought on by the upcoming lockdown. If the government doesn’t come forward to help the traders, they will lose everything.”
Visits to different markets in the capital showed that customer turnout did not meet the expectations of the shop owners. The manager of Jamuna Future Park’s Swadeshi outlet said that people used to shop for themselves and their relatives during occasions earlier, but now they are hardly making any purchase at all.
The traders fear that the upcoming strict lockdown would exacerbate the situation for them as they will miss the biggest scope of business. Incurring staggering losses amid another peak season would make it difficult for them to stay afloat. “We won’t be able to hold out against another setback”, one of the employees of a shop at New Market said.
Shop owners of different markets in the capital urged the government to consider their situation by allowing them to keep the shops open for at least a few hours on a daily basis.
Traders are passing days in uncertainty before Pahela Baishakh and Eid, a time considered crucial for brisk business, with the possibility of facing another year of losses.
