Maharashtra jewellers fear local lockdown will affect gold sales this Gudi Padwa

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Apr 8, 2021

Jewellery businesses in Maharashtra has expressed concerns that the upcoming local lockdown could affect the sales of gold jewellery on the festival of Gudi Padwa on Tuesday.

Jewellery businesses were looking forward to Gudi Padwa, a festival when many find it auspicious to buy gold, as a chance to work towards recovery from last year’s lockdown. However, Maharashtra-based stores fear the upcoming weekend lockdown could put a dampener on festive business. To curb rising Covid-19 cases in the state, authorities have scheduled a lockdown for Friday evening to Monday morning and imposed a more long-term night curfew.  
 
“This was an unwarranted lockdown,” Mumbai-based jewellery business Shobha Shringar Jewellers’ director Snehal Choksey told ET Bureau. “As a businessman, I feel that it does not make any sense to shut economic activities to break the chain of Covid-19. It could have been better to shut just recreational facilities. In fact, they didn’t need to reopen the same in the first place. After a great amount of effort, businesses were on the road to recovery and the momentum had finally started building up since the new year with a sense of normalcy.”

Falling gold prices had also added to the anticipation of high sales next week. Businesses are hoping that the lockdown will end on Monday morning as scheduled and not be extended as has happened in the past.
 
“We could have just increased the pace of vaccination,” said Choksey. “Gudi Padwa is round the corner, which will be impacted even though customers will buy online or book over calls.”