Delaying winter chill makes loss for traders

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, Nov 25: Even at the end of the eleventh month of the year people in Guwahati are using air conditioners, shying away from using sweaters and blazers. Though it does matter for many, it matters much for wool traders.  
Tibetan woolen traders travel down to Guwahati and many other cities in India from the Himalayan plateau to sell their products during the winter. Like every other year, they have come to Guwahati this year only to incur losses. Winter chill is still to be felt in the city, so is sale of woolen cloths. Sales are yet to pick up during this winter sans chill. 
Speaking to this reporter, a seller of Tibetan market, Dawa Gurung said, “I’ve been doing this business for the past 30 years. It seems that time has changed in the blink of my eyes. Till a few years ago, we used to earn huge profits by selling warm clothes to the people of Guwahati. However, for the past four years, due to late arrival of winter we have been incurring huge loss.”
“We arrive in Guwahati by the end of September as Nepal gets winter by then. But here it is the end of November when winter turns its face off. We get very less customers every day, and all of them are from other parts the Northeast, not Guwahati,” he added.
Sushma Thapa, another seller, said, “We are facing a tough competition from the shopping malls as people these days prefer buying the mall stuff to the Bhutia stuff. The arrival of late winter is like a spell on us which is minimizing our profits to zilch. Now we are sitting with an expectation and hope to get our products sold by the coming New Year, when the cold is expected to be the highest. If we don’t gain some profits by then, our business will suffer a complete setback.”

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