The floods in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh have adversely affected traders and businessmen in Kanpur as the supply of essential items like cloth, pulses, and edible oil has almost stopped from the affected areas. The supply of industrially significant commodities like coal is also hit due to the calamity.
The estimated loss last week is over Rs 20 crore, according to Shyam Kumar Gupta, member, UP Motor Transport Association (UPMTA).
“The floods have completely stopped trading activities during the past eight days. Our two hundred transport vehicles are already stuck in the flooded areas and we are not sure about their safe custody and return,” says Gupta.
The city supplies around eight hundred trucks containing cloth, food grains, engineering goods and other goods to Bihar everyday. The supply has, however, reduced to less than 200 trucks now.
“Our payments worth lakh of rupee are stuck up with our trade partners in the affected areas. The increased business prospects in the festive season of Dusshera and Diwali seem to take a beating due to the unfortunate disaster,” adds Gupta.
He though quickly added that his sufferings are nothing compared to the people in the affected areas.
Other traders like Dal Millers Association (DMA) Secretary Pramod Jaiswal told Business Standard that Kanpur used to supply around one tonne of pulses to Bihar everyday, but now it has dropped by more than 50 per cent in the past few days, owing to immense damage to the national highways.
The worst hit are the cloth traders of the city, who supply around 40 per cent of their products to the afflicted state. Kanpur Cloth Committee (KCC) member Kashi Prasad Sharma told that not a single trader has approached them in the past ten days.
“We stockpiled large quantity of goods anticipating huge demand during the upcoming festive season, but now the money invested remains squandered,” he said.
The prices of some dry fruits have also begun to see an uptrend due to no supply from Bihar and neighbouring regions. The makhana prices have shot up by 25 per cent due to short supply from the state. Makhana, which was available at Rs 150/Kg is now selling at Rs 200/Kg.
The rise in coal prices is also adversely affecting the production cost of local industrial units, which use boilers in the manufacturing process.
