Trader’s body Confederation of All India Traders on Sunday said, “Retail trade has suffered a loss of around Rs 15.5 lakh crore in the past 100 days due to COVID pandemic”.
Even after 45 days of lockdown ease, the demand rebound has been low as retailers witnessed “very minimal footfall” along with lack of manpower and financial crunch.
CAIT’s national president BC Bhartia and secretary general Praveen Khandelwal said in a statement, “Domestic trade in the Country is passing through its worst period in the current century which reflects that if immediate steps are not taken about 20% of the shops in India will have to close down their shutters”.
According to Bhartia and Khandelwal, “Around Rs 5 lakh crore of business loss has been estimated in April followed by around Rs 4.5 lakh crore in May, about Rs 4 lakh crore in June and approximately Rs 2.5 lakh crore in the 15 days of July”.
However, Government’s Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme for MSMEs is continuing to offer emergency loans and about Rs, 68,311.55 crores have been disbursed as of July 15, 2020, to 17,98,336 MSME beneficiaries.