The coronavirus pandemic and then the lockdown period following that had an impact on every commercial sector of the country. The city’s flower market is no different.
Arun who had a small flower shop in the Abhayankar Nagar area of the city said, “Our income after the lockdown period have reduced by over 75 percent. We are earning one-third of what we use to earn before this coronavirus pandemic had hit us. Earlier, when the wedding season was underway it was happy days for us, this year forget the increase in business we are finding it hard to survive. We don’t know what will we be eating the next dayâ€.
Parithosh another flower shop owner in the same locality had pretty much the same thing to say. He said, “The demand for our flowers has decreased like anythingâ€. But he admitted that things are improving but at a very slow pace. Earlier, we use to sell flowers, bouquets worth Rs 1000 from there it reduced to 250 (one fourth) now, at least we are earning Rs 350. He said, “We do know, understand and realise that no one is to be blamed for this situation. It was just meant to be. But yes better understanding and awareness from the citizens would have not made the situation so bad. It’s going to take another few months for us for the situation to return back to normalcyâ€.
He also said that our flowers, bouquets are completely safe and people buying these need not worry about anything.