- January 31, 2022
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Economy
New Delhi, India – As the pandemic lashed across India in the past two years, Prince Singh, a small producer of cotton tote bags in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state, dipped into family savings, slashed the salaries of his six workers and took a personal loan on a new credit card – all to keep the business afloat.
Demand for shopping bags revived after the second wave ebbed last summer and as lockdown restrictions eased, allowing Singh to gradually ramp up production to 300-400kg a day by December, though that was well below his pre-pandemic daily average of 1,000kg. But now it’s “impossible” to sell more than 50kg a day, he says, as the Omicron variant spreads through the country.
Singh is no longer sure if his manufacturing business will survive all the chaos. “Customers are driving bargains, forcing us to drop prices,” he says, even as rising diesel and other raw material prices are “squeezing” him.
The pandemic has affected India’s…
