Hyderabad: Shops in MGBS shut as business takes a beating due to lockdown

Hyderabad: The stall owners in the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station have closed their businesses due to decrease in the number of passengers and sales going down and all thanks to the Covid-19 crisis.

The fear of spread of coronavirus has led the passengers travelling in the TSRTC to avoid purchases in the shops inside the bus depot as the shop owners claim that their business has come down drastically.

According to the stall owners not only the operation of buses has come down but also the passengers and this has led to closing down the business.

The stall owners' association president G Narendra Yadav said that not even 10 per cent of passengers are coming to the bus station.

"People, who are coming into the bus station are not purchasing water bottles because of the Covid fear,"

There are about 70 to 80 shops in the MGBS depot and the rents vary from Rs 50,000 to Rs 3,00,000 based on the flow of passengers.

Where the flow of passengers is more, the rent would be more and lower in the area where there are less passengers. Sagar Singh, who runs a shop of eatable items, said that during the normal days, he used to earn Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 per day.

However, because of coronavirus, the business per day has come down to Rs 6,000 leading to huge losses. "Forget about sales, people are not even coming near the shops due to fear of spread of virus," said Sagar Singh.

The shop owners said that they would pay only 20 per cent of rent till the normalcy returns in operation of buses. The shop owners met the TSRTC officials and told them that they have decided to close their shops and cannot pay the rent because of huge losses.

Narendra Yadav said that they were facing losses one after other but still were continuing but now they have no choice but to stop the business. The shop owners faced huge losses during the Telangana agitation. "The officials asked us to close shops from the day of 'Janata Curfew' on March 22.

Though buses were started, these were limited in number and the passengers were also less in number," said Yadav.

Before that the shop owners faced losses because of 57 days strike by the TSRTC employees. The officials assured to take the issue to the government, said Yadav.