Marriage cancellations due to rise in Covid cases and state wide regulations have impacted cosmetic and puja paraphernalia retailers’ business in Dhanbad.

The marriage season scheduled between April 19 and July 15 was expected to bring the sales up for over 2000 shop owners, who were already reeling from losses from last year’s lockdown. The huge stock procured by them is lying unsold because of the cancellations.

Cosmetic jewellery shop owners have expressed that their stocks will be rendered useless in a couple of months as trends and designs are always evolving.

Rinku Kumar Goswami, a cosmetic retailer of Hirapur Hatia, said, “More than 20 thousand marriages were scheduled in Dhanbad during the four month long lagan season from April to July but 80% of these marriages have been cancelled owing to the aggravated Covid situation as well as imposition of lockdown.”

“We had suffered worse days during the last year due to the imposition of lockdown as almost no marriages were held during the last year and we were expecting to somehow compensate for losses of last year but it seems that this season may be worse,” said Goswami.

“Since the situation was quite good in December 2020 and January 2021 and everything was limping back towards normalcy but nobody expected the situation to again deteriorate so fast and thus we have also made some brisk buying expecting some sale,” explained Goswami.

Echoing Rinku’s sentiments, Manoj Goswami , a puja paraphernalia shop owner of Hirapur Hatia Market in Dhanbad said, “I have been operating my shop here since last 30 years but never witnessed such a dull season and the impact is more because it is preceded with another dull season of last year.”