Crowds Dwindle at Hyderabad Exhibition

By M H Ahssan

Stalls at Numaish that once buzzed with eager crowds now wear a deserted look. Traders at the annual exhibition held in Nampally Exhibition Grounds say their business has dipped by 50 per cent when compared to last year, mainly due to the economic slowdown.

Stall owners who come here from other states every year admitted there was hardly any business ever since the exhibition opened on January 1, 2009. According to a stall owner, Manish Kumar Agarwal, of the 153 handloom stalls from Lucknow not even a single owner was making profits.

“At many of these stalls, there has not been a single buyer for days together in the last 23 days of the exhibition. Last time the situation was different,” Agarwal said. He reasoned the decrease in purchasing power of customers for the poor business.

Stall owners said even though they were prepared to give discounts, there were hardly any visitors.

The situation is no different for handicrafts sellers. “I have been putting up a stall at the Numaish for 20 years. This has been the worst year so far. When compared to last year, the revenue is down by 60 per cent,” said M D Kauser of Shimla Handicrafts. Similarly, another handicraft businessman P Krishna said last year he brought 25 cartons of handicraft goods and all were sold out by this time. “Besides, additional stock was brought last year. But this year only four cartons have been sold so far,” said Krishna.

Businessmen whose stalls are near the main track said they are in a slightly better position. The organisers of Numaish, the ‘Exhibition Society’ also said the overall business is down this year because of meltdown in economy. “There are businessmen who are doing decent business but overall the business is down,” said Exhibition Society convener B Hanumanth Rao. He refuted the opinion of stall owners on the low turnout of customers this year and said it was slightly higher this year. “Last Sunday as many as 84,000 people visited the exhibition, which was the highest this year,” Rao said. But the turnout this year is low based on the ticket count. The average crowd last year was 40,347 on any given day whereas this year it is 26,000.