Kolkata: Business buzz grows around schools after reopening – Times of India

KOLKATA: From food joints to churan sellers, stationery stores to photocopy centres, the return of students to schools have brought cheer to traders.
Father-son duo Naresh and Dinesh Singh — who have been running the Hedua Chaat for the last eight decades, catering to as many as five schools and colleges in the area — were practically out of business for one-and-half years. “We would open our shop at 8am and shut by 5pm. But the pandemic made life difficult. Our business had come down to 30%. The first week of reopening of schools and colleges has seen business return to 80% of what it was prior to the pandemic,” said Singh, who has a stall outside Scottish Church Collegiate school.
Standing outside La Martiniere for Boys school was 55-year-old Md Shamim, aka Churan Chacha, who is back after a gap of 20 months. “I have been selling churan and pickles outside this school for 25 years now. When the pandemic hit, I had no idea what to do and somehow managed to run my family selling my wares at weddings and other occasions. But I used to miss the children and their affectionate call of ‘Churan Chacha’. I am glad to be back,” said Shamim.
Two popular eateries outside St Xaviers’ school and college — Delight and food truck Yummee — were also happy to be back. “Our business centres around students. We struggled to even make Rs 500 a day when the institutions were shut. But since reopening, we have started getting back old and new customers,” said Md Sameer, owner of the food truck.
Also back in business are school stationery and photocopy operators. “We used to photocopy lakhs of pages in a day at a very cheap rate of 40 paise per page. But pandemic took away my customers. I ended up in a debt of over Rs 3 lakh. But, I am back in business and hopeful of a full recovery,” said Dipankar Das of Ashu Communication behind Asutosh College.
(Inputs by Mayukh Sengupta)