Border closure: Ambala cloth market feels the pinch

Nitish Sharma

Ambala, February 15

The famous cloth market of Ambala City has started feeling the heat of farmers’ agitation. Due to the closure of the Shambhu border and Chandigarh highway, there has been a big dip in customers.

Traders said they dealt in both retail and wholesale, and a large number of customers would arrive from Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab, especially for wedding shopping. But due to the closure of roads for the past some days, there were no customers and the traders were unable to dispatch clothes.

Bhavnish Nagpal, a showroom owner, said, “Customers are not coming to Ambala, and even those who had placed orders earlier are unable to collect their purchases. A customer had bought a lehnga for her wedding, but due to the road blockade, we had to send an employee specially to Chandigarh to deliver it.”

Bobby Mehndiratta, another trader, said, “February is a major month for us, but there is a dip of 50 to 70% in sales. The suspension of mobile Internet is another issue. If the roads are not opened in a couple of days, stocks worth lakhs will get stuck.”