Amrutlal Nandu, the owner of Fair Price shop, a local kirana store near Churchgate, is a worried man. Nandu’s store is on the road that leads to Mantralaya from Churchgate and used to be a hotspot for the working class who wanted to buy groceries on their way home. However, for a year or so, due to the construction of the underground of the phase 3 of the Seepz-Colaba metro line, the sales have been hit.

“For the past several months, the sales have dipped drastically. Our sales have declined up to 60 per cent as compared to sales of last year. On one hand, customers have to reroute and come to the shop, on the other hand, our delivery boys have to take longer routes to deliver the products. Deliveries to the next building also takes half an hour because of the front gate being shut,” Nandu told BusinessLine .

While the city’s metro construction will not go on for the next 4-5 years, small retailers are worried how they will sustain operations. Kirana store owner Samir Chedda said, “It’s more of an issue to the customers than to the shop owners. Running errands has become more difficult for them. Even telephone lines often stop functioning which affects our sales as well as delivery calls.”

According to Chedda, landlines in that area had been non-operational for over a month with no solution on the horizon.

Building demolition

Last year, the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) had announced that 19 buildings in the Girgaum-Kalbadevi belt were to be demolished to make way for the Colaba-SEEPZ Metro-3 line, but they will be rebuilt in the vicinity. These buildings included 341 commercial units along with 293 residential units as well.

Ratilal Narayan Patel, (64) runs a family owned kirana store for the past two generations is now at the verge of shut shop because of the metro construction in the Girgaum-Kalbadevi area.

Patel said, “There has been a drastic decline of 40 per cent in sales as compared to last year. The reason is because of the buildings being demolished in this area and the lack of parking space for trucks in this area.”

“Since this has become a one-way vehicular traffic, the trucks cannot halt here for more than a couple of minutes. This means that the unloading of the stock needs to be done before 5 AM, which indeed is a difficulty,” he added.

Festival shopping

With Diwali being round the corner, customers tend to start shopping a month in advance to avoid last-minute haste. However, this year, shop owners are only hoping that sales improve.

Jivji Mavji, owner of A One Stores in Mulund, said, “Due to the traffic, vehicles cannot stop here for a minute. Customers who wish to shop more find it difficult to shop because the police doesn’t allow the cars or scooters to halt here. While our sales have been affected drastically. With Diwali being a month away, we’re just worried about our sales of this year.”

When contacted the MMRC spokesperson declined to comment on this issue.

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