Dhanbad traders want trains to Calcutta ahead of wedding season

The coal town traders are affected by the non-resumption of popular train services between Dhanbad and Calcutta like the Coalfield Express (12339/12340) and Black Diamond Express (22387/22388) through which a large number of daily passengers and small-time traders brought products from Calcutta.

The biggest victim of the lack of non-availability of trains is florists who used to bring a huge stock of flowers from Calcutta. Other traders like readymade garment sellers, footwear traders are also facing the same situation.

The heavy cost of road transportation of flowers is adversely affecting the flower prices, at a time when they are much in demand as more than 5,000 marriages are scheduled in Dhanbad during the lagan season between November 25 and December 15.

Talking to the Telegraph Online on Tuesday, Raju Malakar, a florist of Court More in Dhanbad said, “Though we are bringing some stock from Shaktipunj Express (11448) but being a long-distance train running between Howrah to Jabalpur with only 10 minutes stoppage time at Dhanbad, there is a limited scope of bringing enough flowers and we have to depend on road transport also.”

“The cost for a bunch of flowers used to be around Rs 450 before the lockdown which escalated to around Rs 750 to Rs 800 during the present time due to the addition of extra cost of transportation in the overall cost which used to be much low or almost negligible during normal times,” said Malakar.

“The total cost of hiring a pick-up van for a trip to Calcutta is around Rs 9000 and since we cannot afford to bear the cost individually a group of florists use it as a pool van facility to bring flowers from Calcutta,” said Malakar.

Echoing sentiments, Karu Malakar, another retail flower seller of Dhanbad said, “Though we are very happy that we are getting a huge demand for flower decoration during the marriage season, at the same time we are facing great difficulty in negotiating prices of flowers with the customers due to increased prices.”