While small scale businessmen and entrepreneurs are still trying hard to recuperate from the losses caused amid the nationwide lockdown, the ongoing Indo-China standoff has turned out be an added pressure for them.
Businessmen who deal in the electronic goods have been facing dearth of raw materials in the market, since the last three months.
Neeraj Ram, 42, has been dealing on computer appliances for more than a decade now. His shop at Dadar market was closed for nearly five months, however, after he resumed his business he was unable to serve his clients as raw materials are unavailable in the market.
"After the lockdown was lifted most of the complaints were for gadget repairs, we don't have all the electronic parts in our stock thus we procure them from wholesale market. But since the last few months there has been a crisis of materials in the market," Ram told FPJ.
He further added that there are four major wholesale markets at Dadar, Sewri, King's Circle and Parel, known as the hub of electronic goods in the city. The dealers would get their stocks refilled twice every week, but since mid July, goods are coming only twice every month.
"Due to the crisis the goods are being sold at higher prices. Clients are reluctant to understand the crisis so we often need to cut down our profits in order to match the demands," said Ayush Pandey, 23, a retailer of mobile accessories.
Pandey mentioned, competition among his peers have drastically surged in the last few months because if anyone decides to keep his profit margin high, someone will sell the product at lower prices which would lead the other a loss of client.
"Electronic goods are assembled in China. We procure them from our own set of dealers, following which we sell them at the market. Now the supply chain from the dealers has been broken and we don't know the real reason," said a wholesaler at the cost of anonymity.
The wholesaler mentioned, there is a chance that supply could stop completely anytime.
"We have to procure the products by paying 15 per cent extra atleast. There is a high demand of samoled screens for mobiles and micro chipsets and circuits for computer mother boards but we aren't able to procure them in adequate amount," he added.
Senior business expert, Narayan Panje stated, due to the standoff the Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSME) which deal on electronic products could be affected severely in the long run if border tensions heat up.
"Each and every gadget or appliance we use has atleast one Chinese circuit of chip installed within it and unfortunately there's not many Indian alternative to the Chinese counterpart. Thus, if the tension continues MSMEs would face harder time in long run," Panje stated.
