Small traders in the old city not yet put out of their misery as the situation, created out of coronavirus and subsequent lockdown continue to hunt their business while the financial support promised to them is still at large.
Traders say the clouds of despair are still looming large over the business. “More painful is that there is no ray of hope that emerged out of the situation so far. We are running short of sources to pay the salaries to the employees while rebuilding the business became a distant dream. We can’t go to banks for help to revive the business as it would only add to our woes,” bemoaned Muneer Ahmed, owner of a wholesale Kirana shop at Mir Alam Mandi.
“Earlier we used to do the business of 15000 to 20000 a day, but the lockdown brought un into dispersing as we can’t able to fetch the earning more than 400 to 700 a day. The fear of coronavirus completely took away the business from our hand as people scare to enter the arena of Lad Bazar in search of lucrative clothes and apparels for celebrations,” informed Tahir Affari, owner of a Matching center and Zari Works at Laad Bazar.
Amidst the grief and plight of the traders, what is palpably missing is the awareness about Guarantee Emergency Credit Line (GECL) Scheme introduced by the central government to help the distressed MSMEs. The majority of the traders is not even heard about government Schemes.
“We have established business by our own having aware of the fact that banks here will not support us to do the same without going through their red tape policy and the crux full documentation process. Traders will exhaust till the banks approve the loan. As far as the MSMEs are a concern, most of the traders here never heard anything about the same,” Claimed T.Raju, used to run Lathe machine center at Bahadurpura.
“Whatever we are earning right now is not enough to pay the rents and salaries of labors. A business that once helped us to earn adequately has now completely ravaged. We can’t even able to pay salaries to labors employed with us,” claim Mohd. Irfan, who used to run centering work at Hussaini Alam, Hyderabad.
