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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 Political Weathercock

Weathercock

Ramdas Athawale is seeking five seats to contest the upcoming assembly election in the state and an assurance that his party shall get a Cabinet berth if the Mahayuti returns to power in the state after the assembly elections. However, the poet who is known to provide comic relief during serious yet mundane discussions in parliament seems to be unhappy as nobody appears to take him seriously.


Incidentally one of the youth leaders of the party has gone ahead to warn the bigger partners of the Mahayuti of serious consequences if they continue neglecting the smaller allies. This has led to speculations whether the political weathercock is really upset with the alliance?


Ramdas Athawale is union minister for last two terms and recently when he shared dais with Nitin Gadkari, he boasted that he shall be the union minister for the third consecutive term also. Gadkari jokingly taunted that he is not certain whether the NDA shall form government for the fourth consecutive term in the centre, but he is certain that Athawale shall remain a union minister. He also praised the political acumen of Athawale saying that he, like Ramvilas Paswan and Laluprasad Yadav can be called ‘political weathercock’. It is due to this tag, Athawale’s moves assume importance in the political circles.


Recently Dhangar leader Mahadev Jankar, who had once contested election against Sharad Pawar on the BJP backing, left the NDA and said that the chances are bleak that he shall return to the fold. Linking that to the recent Lok Sabha results, Athawale said that it would be wise to deal with the small unrest in smaller parties well in the time before it causes a big trouble later.


Athawale, an activist of Dalit Panther – an organisation founded by poet and activist Namdeo Dhasal that seeks to combat caste discrimination, rose to significance in the late 1970s, during a movement to rename Marathwada University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and soon transitioned from an activist to a politician. In 1990, he joined the cabinet in the Sharad Pawar-led state government, allying with the Congress (I). and also served as member of the state legislative council from 1990 to 1996.


He had won the 1999 and 2004 Lok Sabha polls from Pandharpur (later merged with the Solapur constituency), but lost the Shirdi Lok Sabha seat in 2009 to the Shiv Sena by more than a lakh votes and blamed the local Congress leadership forworking against him.


The next year he joined hands with Balasaheb Thackeray with call for coming together of the Bhim Shakti and Shiv Shakti. In 2012 he joined the NDA and in past 11 years when he has been a union minister, Athawale’s RPI has hardly grown. His latest ‘disappointment’ with the NDA needs to be looked at from this prism of his career, which unfolds a different spectrum before us.

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