Deepavali celebration this year has shown an undeniable level of lowered excitement, especially to businesses in Little India, Ipoh.
During Ipoh Echo’s visit to the Indian bazaar today (November 13), a few business owners opined that the COVID-19 pandemic has made a huge impact on all shop operators.
The pandemic was compared to that of a tsunami disaster which has brought about drastic changes to businesses that depend on major celebrations.
V.K. Kalyanasundram, 56, a traditional Indian outfit business premise owner, said that since the implementation of the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO), he has had much lower sales compared to yesteryears.
“During the Recovery MCO (RMCO), the amount of customers were encouraging but the excitement of celebration had already died down when CMCO came into the picture.
“By then, the business was already badly affected. There are much less customers because operation hours are only from 10am to 10pm. We usually receive patrons up to 1am, a fortnight before the day of festive celebration,” he said.
Kalaiarasi Seberiniam, 35, a worker for an accessories shop, Rathi Fashion & Fashion Jewellery, stated that Deepavali will be celebrated in a much simpler manner in comparison to previous years.
“Despite the festival being celebrated, it will not be as lively as before. My relatives could not gather and travel back to enjoy the festivities together due to CMCO. After all, it’s all for the betterment in stopping the infection chain of COVID-19.
“There are significantly less customers due to businesses having to close by 10pm during the ongoing CMCO, but it was rather busy during RMCO as there wasn’t any limit to the operation hours,” she expressed.
It’s a different situation for Devan Kumar, 17, who helps his mother with her festive cookies and pastries business. Even during CMCO, the business still receives an encouraging number of customers.
“There have been a high number of customers for the last two weeks. Daily profits earned go to more than RM100. Perhaps the business gained attention due to the lower prices of the products offered and absence of competition, since there aren’t any others who sell similar things in the vicinity,” he mentioned.
Rosli Mansor
=============================
Get your local news fast. Download the Ipoh Echo App on your mobile. Available on both Google Playstore and Apple Appstore.
