Wholesale medicines market remains closed

Tribune News Service

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Amritsar, November 10

The wholesale market of medicines remained closed today while business transactions were impaired in other bazaars of karyana, dry fruit, spices and other goods in the walled city.

Amritsar Retail Karyana Association president Kuldeep Rai Gupta said trade had almost come to a grinding halt. The Association has 2,310 members.

He said the people were coming to markets with phased out currency notes, which shopkeepers refused to accept. Due to demonetisation many shopkeepers preferred to keep their commercial establishments closed, he added.

A wholesale sugar trader at Daal Mandi in the walled city, Brij Mohan Arora, said though shops opened, no trade took place. He added that customers were coming with terminated currency while big suppliers had already refused to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. He said they could not do anything else except wait till the new currency arrived in markets.

The Union government has directed chemists to accept old currency notes. Meanwhile, wholesale chemists preferred to keep their shops closed for want of new currency today. The prevailing situation has inconvenienced residents, who were unable to buy essential items, besides medicines.