Hyderabad: Shopping at Numaish set to burn a hole in pocket

Hyderabad: As the All-India Industrial Exhibition (AIIE), famous as Numaish, is all set to reopen from February 25, the visitors, this time, may have to shell out more money owing to the increased expenditure on transport, accommodation and other expenses by the traders.

It can be recalled that the Numaish was suspended abruptly because of surge in Omicron cases earlier in January. Now with threat of Omicron subsiding, the arrangements have been made for its reopening where the cost of products is likely to be more.

After the exhibition was suspended within two days of its opening, the traders shifted their wares to their native places by paying huge bucks. And now with transporting the products again back to the exhibition venue, the traders had to shell out double the expenses on transportation, travelling, reconstruction of allotted stalls and etc, and all these are likely to contribute towards increase in price of products.

According to stall owners, the AIIE Society has called for the reopening of exhibition and the traders have returned to the city along with their goods. The preparation and reconstruction of stalls is going on for the second time.

A stall owner, on the condition of anonymity said, "As we have suffered losses due to abrupt shutdown of Numaish, we hope to make some profits at least this time and expecting good rush of visitors."

"The traders are already running into losses due to the sudden suspension of exhibition and spending extra amount on travelling and transportation have burnt a hole in their pockets. I had to borrow good amount of money to set up the stall again this time," added Ashfaq Ansari from Lucknow, who sells Chikankari dresses at the exhibition. "We have been taking part in the Numaish for the last 10 years and every year there is a considerable drop in the number of customers visiting the stalls. With a year without Numaish in 2021 and a long gap, we are expecting good footfalls this time," opined a few traders. Meanwhile, the exhibition will have over 2,000 stalls and of them, 1,000 stalls would sell wares from States like Rajasthan, Delhi, Maharashtra, Lucknow, Gujarat and Kashmir.