Indian shoppers are out for Diwali shopping without the terrible shadow of COVID after years, and this, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) expects would lead to an infusion of Rs 2.5 lakh crore in the markets.

The CAIT said that this substantial inflow of money is expected to liberate businesses from a financial crunch. Last year, CAIT recorded festive sales at Rs 1.25 lakh crore.

DLF Retail has also shared some data with CNBC-TV18 that indicates that Indians are shopping more than the pre-COVID levels.

“In April to September itself, that is, before the festivals, we had reached around 95 percent of footfall if I compare to pre-COVID levels. The sales, however, had reached 125-130 percent. So, October to January, we are looking at a very strong festive season," Pushpa Bector, ED, DLF Retail, said.

Bector added that buying during the non-sale period improved quite a bit. "So, we think that the footfalls should be crossing pre-COVID levels now, and the sales should show another 20-25 percent jump in this festive season,” Bector told CNBC-TV18.

The Diwali spending, CAIT feels, will be spurred by the 4 percent hike in Dearness Allowance (DA) was announced by the Central government on October 8, and a productivity-linked bonus of 78 days of wages has also been allotted to non-gazetted railway employees to aid spending during the festive season.

More than 4.2 million central government employees and about seven million pensioners have benefited from the government's plan to raise the dearness allowance and dearness relief by 4 percent.

CAIT also said that the loss is approximately Rs 50,000 crore compared to Rs 40,000 crore last year in terms of business lost to China. This was a result of consumers choosing to buy domestic items from traders rather than Chinese imports. The confederation also urged for thrust on the sale of made-in-India products under Aatmnirbhar Bharat.

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First Published:Oct 14, 2022 5:23 PM IST