Sweet shops open to dismal response as buyers stay away while owners face staff crunch

Jamshedpur: After nearly two months of closure, sweet shops in Steel City on Wednesday opened shutters to a dismal response as customers, fearing lack of sanitation, refrained from buying their favourite sweetmeats and the owners struggled to run their establishments with limited staff owing to the ongoing lockdown.

Swapan Mukherjee, a state health department official with a sweet tooth, said, “Earlier, sweets used to be a part of my daily menu but ever since the outbreak of the virus, I am a little sceptical of buying sweets from the shops because I am not sure how hygienic they are.”

Another sweet lover Manju Kar said it is very risky now to eat sweets and samosas from any shop in view of the pandemic, “My daughter, who lives in Australia, has asked me not to eat anything from outside now.”

Meanwhile, faced with lack of demand and staff crunch, the shop owners are at their wit’s end at the moment. The workers, who are mostly from Midnapore in the neighbouring state of West Bengal, have gone back to their native place when their employers refused to pay their salaries or give them food and shelter ever since the lockdown came into force. Now the employees are not willing to come back despite the owners pleading with them to do so, said the shop owners.

Kailash Gupta cannot open his shop in Kagalnagar market till his workers get back. “I tried contacting my staff but they are not willing to come back during the lockdown,” Gupta added.

Echoing similar views, a shop owner in Sakchi market said that though he has prepared a few sweets, the best-selling items are missing from his shop due to the unavailability of his best cooks. Similarly, Sree Ram Sweets in Sonari market could only sell curd as no worker was available to make the sweets.

Earlier, representatives from around 250 sweet shops here had met East Singhbhum deputy commissioner Ravi Shankar Shukla with a demand to allow them to resume business as they were facing huge losses.

The DC had directed the delegation that when the shops are allowed to re-open, it will be the owner’s responsibility to ensure social distancing at the shops and not to allow the customers to sit or eat at the shops. In addition, only takeaway counters will be allowed to function and sanitisers must be kept at the shops, besides making it mandatory for the customers and the staff to wear masks.