NIZAMABAD: With more and more popular jewellery stores opening their showrooms in Nizamabad, the local traditional goldsmiths as well as those from West Bengal, who ply their trade in the town, are facing a threat to their livelihood.
In the last two years, a number of jewellery stores have set up big showrooms in the town. In view of Covid-19 pandemic, customers too have preferring to buy ready-made jewellery from these stores instead of visiting the traditional goldsmiths, especially while shopping for weddings and other big occasions.
With their very livelihood at stake, the local goldsmiths are now urging the government to provide with an opportunity to further develop their skills and also to ensure that they get jobs in big jewellery shops.“Our business has been badly affected by the Covid pandemic. The customers are afraid of visiting our shops to place orders as they are not sure if any of us are affected by the Covid-19. So they started going to these big showrooms which have come up in the last two years,” said a local goldsmith.
“Even people from villages who come here to buy jewellery for weddings and other functions are now turning to these big shops. Our business is badly hit and we don’t know to cope with this situation,” lamented another goldsmith.
According to the Nizamabad Goldsmith Association members, there are over 5,000 goldsmiths in Nizamabad town and around 300 migrant workers from West Bengal. Earlier, there is used to be a competition between them. Now, the situation is completely different.
Speaking to Express, Nizamabad Goldsmith Association secretary V Laxmanachary said: “Because of establishment of big jewellery showrooms as well as the effects of Covid pandemic, local goldsmiths are losing their livelihood. We urge the the State government to resolve this issue and bail us out of this situation.”
“The government should provide us with an opportunity to develop our skills by way of training and hosting workshops. A big jewellery showroom conducted workshops in the State but it was not ready to provide training for local goldsmiths because these people did not have the required skills’’ he explained.