NEW DELHI: With an aim to revive the wholesale and the retail market sector, which was hit the hardest over the past two years owing to the pandemic, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday allocated Rs 100 crore in 2022-23 for the redevelopment of infrastructure and other facilities of traditional iconic markets of the city. This will create 1.5 lakh new job opportunities in the next five years, said Sisodia.
Besides taking into consideration the needs of the customers and the vendors, he said that the city will organise a Delhi Shopping Festival every year, separately for the retail and the wholesale markets. For this, Sisodia proposed a budget of Rs 250 crore.
“The shopping festival will be organised every year and will invite people from across the world. Attractive discounts will be given to the buyers,” said Sisodia.
He added, “It will have an impact on the lives of 12 lakh people employed. With the Delhi Wholesale Shopping Festival, the business may increase by 25% .”
Meanwhile, the Delhi Bazaar, an online portal will further uplift business at zero set-up cost to traders, said Sisodia. Under the Rozgaar budget, the Gandhinagar readymade garment market will be redeveloped into a grand garment hub. Some traders welcomed the initiative while others were not sure how these policies will benefit the existing businesses.
Paramajit Singh Pamma, chairperson of Federation of Sadar Bazar Traders Association said, “Businesses in the city were almost dead during the pandemic and still revival is really slow. We had been demanding the government to make the policies trader-friendly. We are glad that the budget has some solid interventions to help the trader community,” said Pamma.
Traders at Sarojini Nagar were relieved to hear the budget proposals. “The market is in a really bad shape and it requires an infrastructure lift for business to pick up. We have been requesting the government to cut down the 5% GST levied on cloth, which has not found any mention in any of the budgets. Since petrol, diesel prices are rising, it is affecting transportation costs and hence the businesses,” said Ashok Randhawa, president of Sarojini Nagar Mini Market Association.
On the other hand, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) general secretary Praveen Khandelwal termed the Delhi budget “hopeless”. “It is astonishing that not even a single scheme is announced for the trading community nor any policy measure was announced to streamline the trade and commerce in Delhi,” he said.