India loses Rs 150 lakh crore of business due to Covid-19 in 15 days: Traders' body

Covid-19 has had a disastrous impact on business and the economy in India. The lockdown and various other restrictions imposed to contain its spread has proved very costly to the country.

According to an estimate, only in 15 days, the business and economy have suffered a lot of Rs 150 crore in the country. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), An All India traders’ body has issued a press statement in which it has estimated that the increase in the cases of Corona across the country and the imposition of various restrictions by different states have had a direct impact on the business and economic activities across the country, due to which the business of various verticals of goods have gone down by a neutral average of more than 50% in the last 15 days.

“The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has asked the Central Government and the Chief Ministers of all the states to take all possible steps to prevent Covid from further spreading, but besides restrictions, the commercial and economic activities should also go on smoothly side by side, it would be better if keeping this in mind and after consulting with trade association across the country, the steps are taken to fight back the pandemic,” it said.

It added, “The steps like odd-even in Delhi has proved a futile exercise and has restricted conduct of smooth business activities. With these types of restrictions coupled with weekly lockdown has restricted the business activities to operate either for only two days or three days in one week which has also lowered the business activities to a great extent.”

The CAIT has said that Delhi’s distributive character of Delhi Trade is centuries old and this has been highly distorted. Due to this, Delhi’s trade has been slowly and gradually shifting to other states.

“It is to be noted that nearly 5 lakh traders from other states are daily visiting Delhi to source their requirements. But with Covid restrictions, they have stopped coming to Delhi and must be sourcing the requirements from other States, the adverse effect on Delhi trade will be known in later future,” the statement said.