Lucknow street markets shut till May 3

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / Apr 27, 2021

The rising number of Covid-19 cases in Lucknow has prompted not only big traders to voluntarily shutdown, but now even the street vendors have started to chip in.

The association of weekly markets in the ‘City of Nawabs’ has announced to keep their makeshift footpath shops and street kiosks closed till May 3 to contribute towards containment of the virus.

Earlier, the Lucknow Weekly Markets Traders Welfare Committee had decided to implement shutdown of their petty business establishments till April 26.

However, they decided to extend the ‘lockdown’ for another week given a steep rise in the fresh novel coronavirus cases in Lucknow, according to Committee president Wasi Ullah Azad and general secretary Anil Saxena.

They said while the shutdown would result in economic loss to shopkeepers, yet the traders wanted to share the responsibility of preventing the spread of the disease. The markets would lead to over-crowding, thus exposing shoppers to the danger of infection, they noted.

These weekly markets are quite popular in Lucknow city given the wide variety of goods and merchandise viz. apparels, kitchenware, chinaware, toys, consumables, upholstery, food items etc sold at affordable prices.

Not only shoppers from the comparatively weaker sections of society, but even the middle and upper middle class folks, especially women, could be seen hard bargaining with these shopkeepers.

These weekly markets are held in major localities of Lucknow on predetermined and different dates. For example, it is held near the Gole Market locality in upscale Mahanagar area on Wednesday, while Sadar area witnesses the fare on Saturday.