The florists of Dhanbad, who are dependent on the flowers of Calcutta, are facing a lot of difficulties bringing flowers from Calcutta due to disruption of train services from Calcutta to Dhanbad during the lockdown and non-resumption of the services of popular trains like Coalfield Express (12340) and Black diamond Express (22388/22389) till date.
The biggest difficulty was experienced by the florists during Diwali as they were required to bring a huge quantity of flowers, garlands, bouquet, etc. from Calcutta for supply in the local market to Dhanbad.
Talking to the Telegraph Online on Friday, Lallu Malakar, a florist of Court More locality of Dhanbad said, “We are now required to bring the flowers in reserved mini trucks having a fare of Rs 11,500 per trip due to the various restrictions and the reserved vehicle fare for Calcutta has also been increased from Rs 7,500 to Rs 11,500 during the Covid-19 time.”
“Though the demand for flowers this Diwali is like every year but due to apprehensions regarding the lack of liquidity in the market, a slightly lesser quantity of flowers have been brought by the florists and this may lead to a crisis on Saturday during the day as the response of customers is better than our expectations,” said Malakar.
Echoing sentiments, Ramesh Malakar, another florist of station road locality of Dhanbad said, “Though it is not possible for every one of us to visit Calcutta and bring their consignment in separated reserved vehicles we have devised the system of hiring of pool vehicles for bringing flowers,” and added that instead of dealing with contractors for procuring flower they are now directly visiting the villages like Kolaghat, Ranaghat, Krishnanagar, etc. to purchase the flower from flower growers.
“The situation was not so difficult during the pre-lockdown period when a majority of our consignment used to come through trains like Coalfield Express, Black Diamond Express through which a large number of daily passengers of Dhanbad also used to visit Calcutta to bring a wide range of products from there for sale in the local market,” said Ramesh.
“We demand the state government and district administration to ensure early resumption of train services between the Dhanbad and Calcutta so that small traders like us dependent to Calcutta market do not have to face difficulty,” said Ramesh and added that though interstate bus service has started from Jharkhand but the bus operators are charging an increased fare and instead of regular fare of Rs 450 they are charging Rs 600 per person as fare.