Cloth merchants in the city's Islampur, the biggest wholesale clothing market in the country, are in a fix due to the ongoing blockade that caused 80 per cent decline in their daily turnover, according to the traders.
The ongoing blockade has caused severe losses to the wholesale cloth merchants, as the number of customers from the different parts of the country has dropped drastically, they added.
Haji Md Shahabuddin, owner of Shatota Fabrics at Khan Mansion in the area, said Islampur is the centre for cloth retailers in the country.
It is the wholesale trading centre of Jamdani, Katan, Rajshahi Silk, Batik, hand-painted sari, women's dresses like three pieces, men's shirt cloth, pant cloth, kids' wear, winter clothing, bed sheet, cover sheet, lungi and other clothes.
He said the traders are in a peril due to the shutdown and blockade.
"Retailers from Rangpur, Dinajpur, Rajshahi, Pabna, Jessore, Kushtia and other regions are the key buyers of Islampur cloth market. The number of retailers declined nearly by 80 per cent," he said.
He said his usual per day sale is worth not less than Tk 0.5 million (in the minimum) which has just been reduced to Tk 0.1 million due to the blockade.
"A few customers are in the market from Dhaka and its adjacent districts," he said.
BM Shoeb, proprietor of M/s Shoeb Corporation at Dowlat Complex in Islampur, said winter will linger until February in many regions of the country. "We are missing both winter and spring sales", he lamented.
"I have four employees who are paid weekly. My weekly sale is on an average Tk 1.0 million which has reduced to just Tk 0.35 million now," he said.
Md Billal Hossain, owner of M/s M Ali Enterprise at Meherban Market in the area, said raw cloth for shirt, pant, lungi and sari is in demand most here.
Apart from lack of customers, the traders are also not getting products from the local factories and from the importers' level, as transportation has remained halted for about two weeks.
He also pointed out that Babur Hat in Narsingdi district has recently emerged as an important cloth wholesale market.
"But, the blockade hit the Babur Hat traders also," he said.
Md Enamul Hoque, owner of Tumpa Fashion at Salek Market in Rangpur, came to Islampur on Thursday.
Talking to the FE in front of Jahangir Tower in Islampur on the day he said: "I was prepared to come to Islampur in the first week of this month. But
I couldn't enter the city as the highway transportation remained halted due to the political upheaval. However, I have managed a train ticket after a long struggle," he said.
He informed the FE that hundreds of cloth traders in Rangpur district are in a tough condition, as their stock has finished and they could not come to wholesale markets in Islampur and Babur Hat to cover it up.
Secretary General of Islampur Cloth Merchants Association (ICMA) Al-Hajj Masudur Rahman Sohel said 12,000 traders in Islampur are in dire straits due to the political turbulence.
He said: "Transaction has dropped by more than 80 per cent but we still have to keep our shops open to hold our customers."
He said most of the merchants depend on bank loans.
"If such political situation continues, it would make hundreds of traders bank defaulters," he said.
"The defaulter traders will also be affected in the coming Eid festival for lack of capital", he said.
According to the ICMA, the daily turnover of Islampur is Tk 1.2 billion on an average on normal days which declined to just Tk 240 to Tk 250 million during the blockade period.
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