12 Kolkata: To make up for the lost time due to Cyclone Dana, which pushed back the inauguration of Baji Bazars by three days, organisers said they will keep the cracker markets open till Nov 1, a day after Diwali and Kali Puja.
On Wednesday, however, retailers at the Tala Park Baji Bazar lamented their bad luck as heavy localised rain flooded the ground, dashing hopes of recovering losses sustained due to Dana.
"On Tuesday, we did decent business and were looking forward to good sales on the remaining days. But the sharp shower between 1 pm and 2.30 pm flooded the ground. We don't know if we can turn around from this situation," said Subhankar Manna, the chief organiser of the market.
The 44 stalls at Tala Park had commenced sales on Tuesday after the rain due to Cyclone Dana on Friday inundated the ground and made it unusable until Sunday. Though some stalls began sales on Monday, the market officially began functioning only on Tuesday after it received all permissions.
It did not rain at the other cracker markets in Maidan, Behala and Kalikapur, but all of them reported lukewarm sales. "We have heard that markets outside Kolkata are doing brisk business but sales here have been quite disappointing till now. On Tuesday, Dhanteras, fireworks sales were around half of what we do each year on Dhanteras. We hope to make up the sales deficit by keeping the market open on Nov 1," said Burrabazar Fireworks Dealers Association treasurer Santanu Dutta, who is one of the key organisers of the Baji Bazar at Saheed Minar, the largest in the city.
Though sales picked up on Wednesday evening, Amitabha Banerjee, who leads the Baji Bazar at the Behala Blind School, and Shyama Prasad Majumdar, who helms the market at Kalikapur, said the turnout was lower than last year. All the Baji Bazars will operate until the day after Kali Puja.
The 98 markets in the districts have reported huge sales and expect to record a sales growth of 50%-55% over last year.