Traders to cut down on working hours voluntarily

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 17

These are depressing times for every sector in the market. Even the industrialists and manufacturers are not untouched by the Covid blow. Now, they have decided to run their units for four or five days a week. The industry may soon head to a self-imposed lockdown! The industrialists share that because of no orders, there is hardly any sale, which is why they plan to run their units for four-five days a week.

This decision of running the units for five days has just been taken because they wish to retain their workers.

The sky high price of the raw material has aggravated the problem.

Charanjit Singh Maingi, Chairman, Jalandhar Chamber of Industries and Commerce, shared that today any raw material supplier demands immediate payment for the the raw material. “The trust is lost. Earlier this was not the case. There was an understanding between the supplier and the buyer and we would pay the money in 10-15 days, but now, the scenario has changed,” he said.

“Lockdown has been imposed in Hyderabad, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Bengal, everywhere the lockdown has been imposed and the market is allowed to open for a few hours, so, doing business in this scenario is not even possible,” he added.

Maingi shared his personal experience. He said for the past 20 days, two of his induction machines have not been working, for which, essential parts are available only in Delhi, but, because of the lockdown, he is unable to get the parts, and thus the machines are lying as it is.

Talking about the difficult situation, Chairman, Northern Region of Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) Kamna Raj Aggarwalla said these days, the domestic business is very slow. “We are not seeing any orders. There is an anxiety where the business is headed. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. We cannot even plan our own business, because we don’’t know when will the normalcy return,” she said, adding that predicting the future is difficult right now as there is no direction and lack of optimism in the marketplace.

“The prices of raw material have gone through the roof, and that too without any warning. This is troublesome for us,” the Chairman said.