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Chandigarh residents splurge on all that glitters on Dhanteras
Recovering from a pandemic-caused slump, jewellers in Chandigarh said the buyers’ enthusiasm through both Saturday and Sunday came as a welcome departure from declining trajectory of sales
The rare two-day Dhanteras celebrations that spanned from Saturday evening to Sunday evening ushered in a two-fold increase in the sale of jewellery across city markets.
Recovering from a pandemic-caused slump, jewellers said the buyers’ enthusiasm through both Saturday and Sunday came as a welcome departure from declining trajectory of sales.
The president of Jewellers’ Association, Chandigarh, Vinod Talwar said, “Sales were definitely more than what we saw in the past couple of years.”
Talwar added that the same happened despite gold prices going up by ₹400-500 just in the past couple of days. On Sunday, the price of 24-karat gold ranged between ₹5,200 and ₹5,300 per gm, while silver cost ₹60 per gm.
Rajeev Sahdev, president of Chandigarh Jewellers’ Association, observed that the number of customers remained the same on Saturday and Sunday, but was quick to add that sales were the highest since demonetisation. Sahdev, who has a shop in Sector 35-D, said gold coins and diamond jewellery were the most sought after items this year.
Car sales also saw an uptick as per Nitin Mehan, owner of Autopace Chandigarh: “Sales saw a considerable rise on Dhanteras. Popular cars like Swift, Brezza, Grand Vitara and Baleno are not available at all due to the high demand.”
Mehan, who is also the general secretary of the Federation of Chandigarh Region Automobile Dealers, added that there was an increase in demand for high-end luxury vehicles as well as for big brand names.
Speaking of figures, Mehan said he sold around 200 vehicles during the Dhanteras period, adding, “With Dhanteras falling over the weekend, many people came and made payment on Friday itself.”
Approximately 1,000 vehicles were sold over the festive period in the city as per dealers. Last year, the figure languished at around half. City malls, meanwhile, also bought into the festive fervour, with Nexus Elante Mall putting up a “Lights of Happyness” set-up featuring an interactive diya made using 6,000 LED light bulbs.
While traffic cops were deployed in the city and arrangements were made to tow away wrongly-parked vehicles, traffic problems continued on Sunday as people thronged markets for Dhanteras shopping.
Traffic jams were seen in the vicinity of most major markets even as traffic police also continued their awareness programmes and took to social media to ask people to park their vehicles properly. As many as 32 parking lots have been designated at various government schools and some colleges near 20 city markets for the festive season..
