“Paanch din se bohni tak nahi hui hai, ek gamcha bhi nahi bika hai (Not a single sale has been made in five days, not even a single towel has been sold,” said Alok Kumar Srivastava, a garment shop owner and founding member of the Raxaul Chamber of Commerce. Sitting cross-legged on a cot inside his store, tucked a few metres off the main market road, Srivastava painted a bleak picture of the town’s commercial pulse. His shop staff, seated silently on other beds, mirrored the despondency.
“Durga Puja is the biggest festival in Nepal, and most of its festive shopping happens here in Raxaul. By this time of the year, we’d normally have three to four customers in the shop at any given time,” he added.
Raxaul’s market, which sits on the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar, thrives almost entirely on customers from across the border. “90% of our business is Nepal-dependent. Only 10% comes from local buyers,” Srivastava explained. The COVID-19 lockdowns had already crippled the local economy, and while there had been slow signs of recovery, the unrest in Nepal has derailed those hopes once again.
“This year wasn’t commercially great so far, but from the beginning of September, we started feeling optimistic. There was movement in the market and buzz around festive shopping. It felt like things would finally pick up during Durga Puja,” he said.
According to Srivastava, Raxaul is a natural shopping stop not just for Nepal nationals but also for Indians returning home through this border. “Many people from Bihar also go and live in Nepal for work. So they too shop here while heading home during festivals. Everyone buys something,” he said.
The optimism has vanished in the aftermath of unrest in Nepal.
But that optimism has vanished in the aftermath of unrest in Nepal. The violence and looting there have left traders in Raxaul in a state of panic. “We usually sell about ₹50,000 worth of clothes daily. Since the disruptions, sales have dropped to zero,” Srivastava said, adding, “We always pray that Nepal stays happy so that our market stays happy.”
The broader market scene in Raxaul reflects this decline. The main commercial stretch – running from the Raxaul railway crossing to Nahar Chowk – is hardly a kilometre long but typically used to be packed with activity. “On normal days it would take as much as an hour to cross this stretch in a vehicle, so was the rush on it,” said Sonu Kumar, who runs a shop near the railway crossing.
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Though compact, this corridor hosts a dense cluster of businesses from hotels, malls, garment shops, hypermarkets, pharmacies, mobile stores, furniture outlets, fruit vendors, virtually everything one expects of a major market. Many of these establishments also spill into the narrower peripheral streets. But since the beginning of this week, footfall has vanished from most shops. “There’s just no movement anymore,” Sonu added.
Many business owners, Srivastava said, are now reconsidering or outright cancelling their supply orders. “Some have already received consignments and are now staring at losses. Others who have pending orders for Chhath Puja are also thinking of cancelling them. It will take Nepal a long time to recover from this,” he said.
Outside, the gloom continues. On the main street near a local hotel, a group of staffers were talking about the looting in Nepal.
“Jewar ke dukan ghus ke log sab sona loota hai… agar humlog bhi jaan pe khel ke ghus jaate, to malamaal ho jaate (People broke into the jewelry shop and looted all the gold… if we had also risked our lives and gone in, we would have become rich too),” one of them joked, drawing nervous laughter. But the conversation soon turned serious.
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“They looted ATMs, banks, shops, malls, everything. In the fight against the government, they ended up harming themselves too. They shouldn’t have resorted to looting” said another, shaking his head in disapproval.
Raxaul’s currency exchange services, vital for cross-border trade, have also taken a severe hit. A money changer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “We used to exchange ₹5 lakh worth of currency daily. Now we’re not even doing ₹5,000.”
A local transport agency owner shared a similar decline. “We used to process paperwork, permits and e-way bills for 15 to 20 trucks daily, sometimes even 50. But in the last five days, there hasn’t been a single truck. Yesterday we got instructions to begin services but only to clear consignments of perishables,” he said.
Shambhu Yadav, a fruit dealer in the market, echoed the concern. “We had to sell fruits without profit just to recover our capital in the last few days. These things don’t stay forever, if we can’t sell it within a few days, all our money will go to waste,” he said.
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Mobile and jewellery shop owners, who were hoping for brisk business during Durga Puja and the upcoming Dhanteras, now also find themselves unsure. The buzz and footfall they were banking on have simply not materialised.
“Everything was lined up – stock, displays, staffing – but after what happened in Nepal, the mood is completely off. We’re not hopeful anymore,” said a jewellery store manager.