Amid the ongoing protest, agitations and violence against Sri Lanka and its nationals across Tamil Nadu, big and small businesses across the State have said that their daily earnings have taken a severe hit in the last one week.
Most of the impact was related to travel industry, especially medical tourism. It may be noted, Chennai is the gateway for travellers from India to Sri Lanka and vice-versa.
Sri Lanka’s national carrier decided to bring down its service by 50% in Colombo-Chennai sector. The decision came after the Sri Lankan government gave a travel advisory.
“Srilankan Airlines has observed a drop in traffic between Chennai and Colombo due to recent developments in Tamil Nadu, hence it was decided to reduce its frequency of flights to Chennai from 28 to 14 per week,” the airline has said.
Of the seven flights operated in this sector every day, four were operated by the Srilankan Airlines, while the other private operators continued to their services. It may be noted, the Sri Lankan Government owned carrier is the largest operator in this sector.
In February, the airline operated 107 passenger flights, with 80% occupancy ratio and one freighter.
According to official data, the passenger flights carried 552.92 tonnes of cargo from Chennai to Colombo. While from Colombo it brought 395.53 metric tonnes of cargo. Besides, one freighter was also brought by the airline to carry 10.65 metic tonnes of cargo from Chennai. The cargo mainly contains textile, engineering material, raw materials, electronic items, etc.
Somi Hazari, Managing Director, The Shosova Group of Companies, one of the big trading houses between the two countries, and former president for Indo-ASEAN-Sri Lanka Chamber of Commerce and Industry says that there is no doubt that business is getting affected due tension between both the countries.
For instance, earlier, cement was imported from India, which is now being imported from China and Pakistan. Similarly textile, which was exported from southern districts of Tamil Nadu and Punjab to Sri Lanka and is now being imported from China to Sri Lanka, the same goes for engineering goods.
As far as tourism industry is concerned, according to government sources, every year around 2.50 lakh people travel from Sri Lanka to India, and 70-80% of them were transshipping at Chennai. Majority of them come for medical, spiritual, entertainment and shopping.
But in the last one week, due to the various events in the state number of people travelling to Chennai from Colombo has come down. This has reflected in hotel occupancy ratio, inflow of patients in hospitals and to some extent on retail (textile shopping) industry also.
The two correspondents have visited major retail (textile and jewellery) shops at T-Nagar, shopping hub in Chennai, and most of the shop and restaurant owners have said that hardly have hardly had any customers from Sri Lanka in the last one week.
Major hospitals have also started reporting a decline in number of patients coming to Chennai from Sri Lanka. For instance, Fortis Malar has said that on an average around 15-20 international patients were coming, of which 10% used to be Sri Lankan nationals, which has now reduced to 3-4%. This trend has been noticed for the last 12 months.
This was also confirmed by the four top hotels including Hotel Pandian, Victoria and others in Chennai which are known to get Sri Lankan tourists. They have reported a 10-15% drop in occupancy ratio. One of the hotels have said in the last week not even one guest checked in from Sri Lanka. The hotel requested not to be named.
It even affected bars at Egmore area, where most of the Sri Lankan tourists that visit stay at Sri Lanka Maha Bodhi Centre, a Sri Lankan establishment run by Sri Lanka Maha Bodhi Society.
Businesses were hit as hundreds of police officers have been stationed around the clock around the state to keep a vigilant watch on protestors. As roads are blocked in the evening, the hotels on the lane are have taken a hit, said representatives of the establishments.
Another small shop, which engages in foreign exchange, said, in the last one week he has been unable to do business as foreigners are not able to walk in due to the police bandobast.
These developments come on the backdrop of assaults of Sri Lankan nationals, students, and even Buddhists monks in various parts of the state.
Two Buddhist monks came under attack in Thanjavur and Chennai on Tuesday. The attacks came ahead of a crucial vote at the ongoing UNHRC session in Geneva where a US-backed resolution is expected to be adopted on Sri Lanka’s accountability and reconciliation progress since the end of the three-decade long civil war in 2009.
