As the valley limps back to normalcy after five month unrest, businesses are returning to their routine and trying to compensate the losses. Aliya Bashir reports.
For Sarfaraz Haji, 27, changing his line of business this summer was a tough decision. He had recently ventured into ice cream business for which he had taken a loan from a bank and purchased machinery and material from Delhi.
“I was so excited to open my own small business unit. I had dreams of opening ice-cream parlours in all districts of the valley. But in just five months everything was shattered,” Haji, a hotel management graduate said.
As the summer was almost gone and demand for ice cream set to be minimal, Haji took a decision to switch to selling woolens. Eid-ul-Azha proved to be lucky for him.
“I am overwhelming with my decision and thankful to God. The sale of sweaters this winter is picking up so fast that I had decided to make it my permanent winter business. Now I am in a position to pay the debts and also make savings,” Haji said with a smile.
Opposite to his shop lies the henna designer outlet of Rakesh Kumar, who hails from Kolkata. As most of the marriage ceremonies in Kashmir this summer were performed with austerity, the demand for henna artists went down.
“As the whole season of marriages was badly affected by the unrest, so the business suffered badly. But now I am selling socks, bags and woollen items imported from Bangladesh and other countries,” said Rakesh, who is hopeful that winter will give him good sales. “All my customers who used to come for applying henna now visit my shop and purchase these items. I am looking forward to again resume my work in next summer.”
Kamaldeep Kour Kamra is the managing Director of Samridihi Ply-boards private limited. She is jubilant that her unit is resuming normal work and is hopeful to overcome losses suffered during the last five months.
“A large-scale plant needs to operate continuously. We are trying our level best to bridge the gap. Our labours come to work regularly even on Sundays and put in extra efforts to recover the losses,” said Kamaldeep.
The ply-board factory with more than 250 employees out of which around a 100 are locals, started production in 2004 in Anantnag district.
But owing to the unrest around 150 labours have fled the valley. The company suspended its two projects of polyvinyl chloride (P.V.C) worth Rs 8-10 crore in Pulwama’s Lassipora Industrial estate.
The company shifted its sales focus to Jammu region due to continuous curfews and shutdowns in the Valley.
“Our sales had gone down and outside customers preferred to purchase goods from Punjab as we couldn’t fulfil the order on time,” Kamaldeep said. “We had around Rs 5 crore loss in turnover. So the need of the hour was to look for new dealers which we made in Jammu. But Kashmir is always our top priority.”
Junaid Shahdad, proprietor Caf? Robusta Lounge is optimistic about overcoming some of the financial losses of around 20-25 lakh rupees. “Owing to the unrest, we completely closed our cafe. But still we paid salaries to our employees. When things started worsening, almost 40 percent of our employees left,” said Junaid, who had around 10 employees both locals and non-locals working in his lounge.
The cafe which used to attract mostly young clientene with a variety of coffee and pizzas had put its expansion plans on hold.
“Our industry is fragile. We have lost a complete season. We were planning to open some outlets in Sangarmal complex, Nishat and some other areas. But now we had delayed that for the time being,” Junaid said.
Shakeel Qalander, President Federation Chamber of Industries Kashmir, is of the view that despite off-season, entrepreneurs in the valley are trying to compensate the losses to some extent with some extra-production and extra-work. “The losses owing to unrest in different industrial sectors are quite visible. So in totality it (recovering losses) is going to be a difficult task,” he said.
Qalander said that the need of the hour is the support required from state government and general public in procurement of locally available services and goods.
“Entrepreneurs have to earn for themselves and for the expenses in terms of interest rates, office and travelling charges and other related expenses. Whatever humanitarian loss we had, all local manufactures showed unity. Now people should reciprocate to encourage an entrepreneur in all possible ways,” Qalander said.
Not only manufacturing units but IT companies are also trying to get back on track.
Zahoor Malik, State President, of ESSAR enterprise Aegis, which operates from STPI Rangreth, says they paid salaries to all the employees on their pay-rolls “without any work”. Aegis, a BPO became functional in the valley on November 16, which was earlier scheduled to open in June this year. They said the situation forced the delay.
“Despite all the odds, our employees were quite optimistic and reaffirming their belief that the company won’t get closed. So this somehow helped us to resume our work,” Zahoor said they have around 100 employees in an age group of 18-30 working in the call centre.
As many business ventures shifted their base from Srinagar to Jammu, Aegis stuck to a different strategy. “Instead of lay-off, we shifted some of our higher officials working in Srinagar to Bhopal, Delhi and other states. But, we didn’t let our employees suffer at any point in time,” Zahoor said.
Another IT company within the STPI complex had almost a similar story to share. “We managed critical projects somehow. One cannot expect the full compensation of all the losses. But we are somehow trying to work on the possible areas which can benefit both company interests as well as that of the employees,” said an official wishing not to be named.
Talat Parvaiz, CEO, Cable Corporation, Gulmarg Gandola has set all his hopes on the winter tourism to compensate the losses suffered during the summer. “Cable car has always been an attraction for the tourists. Whosoever visits Gulmarg, rides it for sure,” he beams. “We are quite hopeful that up to March we can compensate the losses. Compared to last year we are short of 10-15 percent of revenue as the peak season of tourism is already over.”
He says, the cable car was non-functional for about 30-40 days. “The tourists rush was just the one-fifth of the expected culminating into revenue losses of around 40 percent,” said Talat.
