According to preliminary trade estimates, due to the ongoing agitation in the state, business of over Rs 8,000-10,000 crore has been hit.
Some industries are working on 50 per cent capacity because they are finding difficult to get the raw materials, while others are not able to dispatch their finished products due to road and train blockades by the Gujjars.
"Industry alone must have suffered losses of over Rs 5,000-7,000 crore in the 19 days of agitation," Prem Biynai, general secretary of the Federation of Rajasthan Trade & Industry (FORTI), said. Sectors like transport, tourism and commodity markets have been hit the most.
The transport sector, on average, is losing business of Rs 5 crore daily as the trucks are not plying on account of road blockades in some of the sectors, while in others the truckers are afraid of running their trucks. "According to estimates, we must have lost around Rs 100 crore in the 19 days so far since the agitation started from May 23," Gurnam Singh, a local transporter, said here.
Similarly the commodity trade has been affected. "According to our estimates, business of over Rs 50 crore must have been affected so far," Anil Jain, an eminent commodity trader here, said.
Moreover, with the supply of commodities like wheat and mustard being affected, prices of both the commodities in various parts of the state has gone up by 4-5 percent. The mustard prices in Jaipur touched Rs 3,070 per 100 kg on Monday (June 9, 2008) from Rs 2,090 on May 23.
More From This Section
Tourism is another sector that has been badly hit. Though Rajasthan does not receive much of foreign tourists in May-June, but domestic tourists do come to visit the state famous for its forts, palaces and wildlife.
The hotels are reporting very thin occupancy, while tourist taxis are not getting any business.
"For the last over 10 days, I have not got any sightseeing business. We earlier used to earn at least around 800-1,200 per day even in the lean months of May and June, but not this time," Ramnarayan, a taxi owner, said.
Jaipur is also part of the Gold Triangle circuit that brings thousands of foreign visitors every year.
"The impact right now among foreign tourists is not much as it is not a tourism season. However, we have started receiving enquiries from the travellers planning to come here later in the year," Karan Singh, a travel agent, said.
Echoing similar views, Pratap Singh, a hotelier, said the occupancy in economy and budget hotels especially in Jaipur has dropped drastically.
"During May, occupancy in Jaipur hotels used to be around 50-60 per cent but after the Gujjar agitation, the occupancy has touched around 10-15 percent", Singh said.
Rajasthan is one of the popular tourists' destination both among foreign as well as domestic tourists.
The arrival of foreign tourists to the state of Rajasthan has seen a quantum jump from 428,000 tourists in 2002 to 1.22 million in 2006, which is a whopping growth in mere four years.
Similarly, the arrival of domestic tourists has also leapfrogged from 8.3 million in 2002 to 23.5 million in 2006.
Till October 2007, 17.7 million domestic tourists had visited Rajasthan.
The tourism growth in Rajasthan has been phenomenal in the last few years. Annual rate of growth for domestic tourists has been 7 per cent and 5 per cent for international tourists.
The tourists inflow to Rajasthan from overseas include more from countries like France, the UK, Germany, the US, Italy, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Bangladesh etc. Though the total spending by all the tourists visiting the state is over Rs 1,000 crore per annum.
"Though it is difficult to quantify the losses suffered by the Rajasthan tourism industry, but as per rough estimates it should be around Rs 70-100 crore," Singh added.