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Commerce shows the way
to normalcy in Kutch

Sheela Bhatt in Bhuj

''We have sealed Reliance at Rs 279 and paid up Rs 1.50 crore,'' says Arvind Thakker, a share-broker and president of the Grain Merechants Association. A normal conversation one will hear in mercantile Gujarat - but then these are not normal times. Thakker was making this remark in Bhuj, which was devastated in last Friday's earthquake.

On January 25, Reliance shares closed at Rs 279, and on February 3 the town's share-brokers were meeting to devise ways to pay off dues which they were to have done on January 26 itself.

Thakker is at Bhid, a main market of Bhuj, along with a media crew from Japan. At a little distance, a truck of potatoes has just arrived from Jalandhar.

Ashwin Thakker, a wholesaler of onions, is trying to settle down in his shop while just five feet away are a bunch of woe-begone lads. When I asked one of them what they were doing there, he started crying profusely.

Narendra Mehta from Dadar, in central Bombay, has lost his parents Anupchand and Lilawati, but their bodies is still to be extricated from the debris.

"For the first five days I didn't get any help. And since the last four days the Army is helping, but it is not enough."

The Mehtas lived in the lane opposite Ashwin Thakker's shop, which reopened for business on Friday.

In Bhuj's half-century old market, more than 150 traders sell goods worth Rs. 200 crore annually, all of it to village retailers.

'Sorry for the query, but do you feel all right about doing business, when bodies are not yet cleared up just 100 metres away?' I asked Ashwin Thakker.

"The villages are in trouble. Sugar is selling at Rs 25 a kg and a matchbox is not available even for Rs 5. If you don't sell now the business will go elsewhere. Lakhs of rupees are due from buyers, and we are doing business now since we have no option. But we are selling on cash, not credit."

Just opposite his shop, a 300-year old chabutara (a concrete tower meant for birds) has collapsed, and many birds are flying restlessly in circles. A restless human I met there was Chandulal Hiralal.

''I am looking for my mother, sister and daughter Chandli's bodies," he says. The bodies are under the debris and can't be extricated without the Army's help.

Regardless of the human tragedy unfolding all over, and within the next hour trucks full of goods would start coming into the market, said Thakker.

''Yesterday we sold 50 tempos of oil, rice and sundry items. Kutchi blood flows in our veins, and you must know that we don't allow even our cows and buffaloes to die during a drought."

"We will work hard and build up Kutch again."

Thakker's blueprint for getting this done is simple.

''If the government gives each trader Rs 10 lakh as interest-free loan for business and a Rs 5 lakh interest-free loan to rebuild homes, we will rise again. We will return the money in 10 years. Our Bhuj district commercial bank will stand guarantee."

Thakker then took me to a tent under which banking was in brisk progress.

On four small tables the bank (with 11,000 members) has started serving customers, mainly traders. The bank will not encash premature fixed deposits and no cheque leaves from old chequebooks will be honoured since there is a possibility of dead traders having signed blank cheques before the earthquake.

In fact, traders from this area plan to file a police complaint over the theft of goods on January 26 when, after the quake, organised gangs in trucks looted the marketing yard. According to Thakker, "Goods worth Rs 1 crore were stolen. But now we feel secure because Kuldeep Sharma has been deployed in Kutch. He knows the region well."

"If we don't start now we will never be able to work. This is the time to move things. Look, since I have opened the bank, the tea stall wallah followed. And when the paan shop reopens next the people will feel more confident."

He is right. For the Mahalaxmi Ganthia stall is already doing brisk business.

The Complete Coverage | List of earthquake sites

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