Mumbai, October 1, 2021: With COVID cases falling across Maharashtra, demand for all hyper-local puja services soared substantially by 72% during this year’s Ganesh Chaturthi, revealed the latest Consumer Survey by Just Dial Limited (BSE: 535648, NSE: JUSTDIAL), India’s No.1 hyper-local search engine.
The rise in demand followed last year’s muted celebrations due to severe restrictions imposed by the Covid -19 lockdown. This year also severe restrictions were put in place by the administration but there was still a rise in demand for all services during the 10-day extravaganza due to relative fall in the number of cases across the state.
Just Dial witnessed a strong demand for idol makers, decorators (pandal makers), pandits, puja item dealers, sweet shops, and flower dealers for the most celebrated festival in Maharashtra. This year’s demand for pandal makers, pandits, and sweet shops surpassed across key cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, and Kolhapur.
Overall, across the state demand for pandal makers rose by 120%, sweet shops by 112%, pandits by 88%, flower dealers by 31%, and idol makers by 25% compared to last year’s Ganesh Chaturthi.
While demand for flower dealers in Mumbai outstripped that from all other cities, Pune saw a 100% jump in its demand followed by Nagpur. For idol makers, Nagpur saw the maximum demand of 167% followed by Mumbai while in Nashik it remained stagnant.
For pandal makers, Mumbai’s demand was way ahead of other prominent cities but both Nagpur and Pune also witnessed a huge spike for pandal makers. But for pandits-on-hire, Pune outsmarted the demand followed by Mumbai, Nashik, and Nagpur.
Even for puja item dealers, Pune witnessed a 30% rise in demand and was closely followed by Nagpur and Kolhapur. Consumer demand for sweet shops soared in Mumbai while Pune, Nagpur and Kolhapur also saw a substantial rise.
