Though celebrations of several festivals were put off owing to the pandemic, the Navarathiri and the Deepavali are scheduled to be celebrated and people have started to move around, have commenced purchasing commodities for the puja resulting in good business for the past couple of days.

Similarly, puja items, including the ash gourd, fruits, puffed rice and jaggery had a good demand among the people and it is expected to reach its peak on Saturday when Ayutha pujas would commence.

Meanwhile, the prices of flowers and fruits had gone high and the traders claimed that the prices would still go up in the coming days. “We were sitting idle for the past six months. We even had discarded the flowers into the garbage bin and there were no takers of flowers. Even after, the jasmine was sold at Rs 80 per kg, no one was ready to purchase and so we had decided not to do business until, the people start buying flowers and the time has come and we hope, we would do business at least to avoid any loss,” Rangaraj, of Srirangam Flower Traders’ Association said.

Rangaraj also said that at least 30 per cent of price had gone up for the flowers and they started doing brisk business.

Similar was the scene in Coimbatore and other districts in which traders have started selling flowers in huge quantities to cater to the Ayutha puja demand. Brisk business was witnessed in most of the markets ahead of the festival season.