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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local....

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local. This reversal owes much to policy. The recent rationalisation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which trimmed rates across categories from garments to home furnishings, has given consumption a timely push. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s September rate cuts, combined with income tax relief and easing interest rates, have strengthened household budgets just as inflation softened. The middle class, long squeezed between rising costs and stagnant wages, has found reason to spend again. Retailers report that shoppers filled their bags with everything from lab-grown diamonds and casual wear to consumer durables and décor, blurring the line between necessity and indulgence. The effect has been broad-based. According to Crisil Ratings, 40 organised apparel retailers, who together generate roughly a third of the sector’s revenue, could see growth of 13–14 percent this financial year, aided by a 200-basis-point bump from GST cuts alone. Small traders too have flourished. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) estimates that 85 percent of total festive trade came from non-corporate and traditional markets, a robust comeback for brick-and-mortar retail that had been under siege from online rivals. This surge signals a subtle but significant cultural shift. The “Vocal for Local” and “Swadeshi Diwali” campaigns struck a patriotic chord, with consumers reportedly preferring Indian-made products to imported ones. Demand for Chinese goods fell sharply, while sales of Indian-manufactured products rose by a quarter over last year. For the first time in years, “buying Indian” has become both an act of economic participation and of national pride. The sectoral spread of this boom underlines its breadth. Groceries and fast-moving consumer goods accounted for 12 percent of the total, gold and jewellery 10 percent, and electronics 8 percent. Even traditionally modest categories like home furnishings, décor and confectionery recorded double-digit growth. In the smaller towns that anchor India’s consumption story, traders say stable prices and improved affordability kept registers ringing late into the festive weekend. Yet, much of this buoyancy rests on a fragile equilibrium. Inflation remains contained, and interest rates have been eased, but both could tighten again. Sustaining this spurt will require continued fiscal prudence and regulatory clarity, especially as digital commerce continues to expand its reach. Yet for now, the signs are auspicious. After years of subdued demand and inflationary unease, India’s shoppers appear to have rediscovered their appetite for consumption and their faith in domestic enterprise. The result is not only a record-breaking Diwali, but a reaffirmation of the local marketplace as the heartbeat of India’s economy.

The Influential Clan of Sangamner

Updated: Oct 30, 2024

Thorat and Vikhe Patil

Saturday morning began with an angry campaign by Congress workers against BJP in Sangamner as BJP candidate Sujay Vikhe Patil’s party colleague made offensive remarks against Jayshree Thorat, daughter of senior Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat. Jayshree, an oncologist, was campaigning for her father who is leading his party in the seat sharing talks of the MVA. Jayshree, a member of the Congress, is the third generation of the Thorat family to be involved in public life.


The angry outburst against the BJP man who made objectionable comments against her, is also a reflection of the bitter rivalry between Thorat and Vikhe Patil who have been battling each other for supremacy over the region. Balasaheb Thorat, whose official name is Vijay, is an eight-time MLA from Sangamner and is the former head of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee. Known to be warm and approachable to his party workers, Thorat comes with considerable experience in the cooperative movement in Maharashtra, having formed a milk cooperative and founded several cooperative educational institutes under the name Amrutwahini. Over his three decade long political career, he’s served as the minister for agriculture and revenue.


Thorat’s father Bhausaheb was a freedom fighter and staunch Congress leader from Ahmednagar who is known to have worked for the cause of the farmers and peasant community. It is said that when he was denied a ticket by the Congress in 1985, Bhausaheb introduced his son into electoral politics and while the second generation Thorat contested as an Independent candidate and won, he returned to the Congress fold and has been a staunch and loyal party worker since then. He’s never lost a single election since 1985 and the uninterrupted tenure has seen Thorat hold several positions of power, in the government.


Another Congress leader from the region, Sudhir Tambe, is Thorat’s brother-in-law and the two families have, for long, enjoyed considerable influence over the politics of Sangamner through their institutes and sugar mills. Tambe has been a Congress legislator in the upper house for the past 18 years but on the eve of the biennial Vidhan Parishad elections last year, withdrew from the fray to make way for his son Satyajit Tambe who contested as an Independent with the tacit support of the BJP and the Congress. Fadnavis had good naturedly cautioned Thorat that the BJP had set its sights on the young Tambe.

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