Covid-19 surge hampers jewellery sales during wedding season in Patna

Many couples have minimized the "grandeur wedding jingles" and thereby opted for rescheduling of events and a reduction in the number of attendees at the wedding events.

As the Covid-19 cases continue to surge, the jewellery sales in Patna have dipped resulting in the loss of several small businesses in this wedding season.

According to jewellers, the introduction of GST at 3% on gold and 18% on making charges has led to a hike in gold jewellery price. (HT File Photo)

Speaking to ANI, a jeweller said, "Jewellery sales are not up to our expectations because weddings are being rescheduled or cancelled due to rising Covid cases."

Another jeweller, Saket Gautam told ANI, "Last year was very bad for us. But this year too, business prospects are not good for us, especially for small jewellers catering to middle-class families because they are struggling with an extreme cash crunch. This has affected our business."

The 'wedding business' is impacted in Delhi as well. The night curfew imposed in the national capital amid the resurgence of Covid-19 has adversely affected the businesses of several wedding halls.

Many couples have minimized the "grandeur wedding jingles" and thereby opted for rescheduling of events and a reduction in the number of attendees at the wedding events.

Small businesses are impacted not only in Bihar but other states as well. In the past few days, several migrant workers opted to travel back to their hometowns from Delhi's Anand Vihar Bus Terminal and Mumbai's Lok Manya Terminus to avoid chaos like the previous year's lockdown, which, they (migrants) believe is very likely.

On April 6, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar held a review meeting over the Covid-19 situation in the state via video conferencing. "Amid the rising Covid cases in other states, there's a possibility that people hailing from Bihar might return here. We must prepare a quarantine centre for them," said the Chief Minister.

Meanwhile, India saw 1.31 lakh new Covid-19 cases on Friday, the third consecutive day of the highest spike in cases in the country while 780 more deaths were reported due to the disease in the last 24 hours.

According to Union Health Ministry, the country recorded 1,31,968 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours and the total count of cases has gone up to 1,30,60,542.The death toll has gone up to 1,67,642. The country has 9,79,608 active cases.

A total of 61,899 people recovered or were discharged on Thursday taking the total number of recoveries to 1,19,13,292.