Pune: On its first day of being allowed to operate for entire day without any restriction of alternate-day opening, parking lots of marketplaces like Laxmi road, Tulshibaug and Ravivar Peth were full with vehicles of traders but sans customer footfall shops remained empty on Wednesday (August 5). Lukewarm response from customers was attributed to the incessant rains in the city for the past two days.

On the other hand, wholesale marketplaces like Bohri Aali in Raviwar Peth, Nana Peth, Bhavani Peth were comparatively crowded. This crowd was primarily shopping for the upcoming festive season of Ganeshotsav.

Rains have lashed Pune city for the last 48 hours due to which common citizens preferred to stay safe at their home. Vehicular traffic was also affected due to waterlogging on roads. Despite the low customer turnout, traders were happy that they were allowed to open their shops from 9 am to 7 pm for all days of the week. Traders believe that within a few days, customers will return on the streets for shopping and will bring back normalcy to the market.

BN Ashtekar, a prominent jeweller in the city said, “Out of the total 140 days period in which shops were allowed to open on odd-even date basis on alternate days, we could open our shop only for 40 days. For this entire period, the marketplace was looking like a military camp, but now with all shops opening up for the entire day the marketplace is returning to normalcy.”

Vasant Kawad, a children's toy shop owner said, “We have received good response from customers on the first day of shops remaining open for the entire day. Many of our outstation customers had to face problems due to the alternate opening system of shops as they were unable to decide to travel to the city.”

Nitin Pandit, a cloth merchant said, “The alternate day opening of shops had created confusion in the minds of customers. Several customers had to return and come back another day to purchase anything of their choice which obviously resulted in low footfall. Traders have had to suffer a lot during the lockdown.”