SHILLONG: The State and the capital city of Shillong has been witnessing frequent bandhs and road blockades for the last two weeks and this syndrome of agitations is now taking its toll on the common man apart from the state exchequer.
While the Government loses crores of revenue on a single day marred by bandhs and blockades, the poor daily wage earners too are bearing the brunt of such actions.
An old lady who stays in Mawlai visits home to home to collect second hand clothes and pays money to earn her livelihood says that she is affected by such bandhs but she is unable to do much to against it.
“These big people do whatever they want but at the end of the day I have to survive for myself and my only son,” says the lady.
Now the poor shopkeepers who open up makeshift shops in Mawkadok bridge near Sohra also admits that the number of tourists have tremendously gone down after agitations started in the State.
“The bandh has affected our daily earning since now the number of tourists has gone down,” a shopkeeper said while making noodles for a customer in a chilly weather on Sunday.
A hotel manager in Police Bazar also recalls last year when his hotel was full of guests at this time of the year which is a peak month for tourists to visits the State.
“Earlier guests used to visits our hotel even at 10 pm but now we close our hotel early and now most of our guests are local guests who visit Shillong from different parts of the State,” the hotel manager added on the request of anonymity.
Similarly, frequent bandhs have also played a spoilsport for many of the poor villagers and businessmen who were schedule to go to villages on Friday for selling their goods during the weekly market.
However, the weekly Bazar was deferred to Saturday and people are hoping that they can compensate for the losses which they had to face on Friday due to the bandh.