10 months on, women running Imphal mrkt seek to reopen shop

For 15 years, N Bina Devi sold seasonal agricultural produce in Nupi Keithel, the market in Imphal run only by women, to support her fourmember family. That was until March of last year when the Manipur government ordered the market to shut down in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 48-year-old vendor in Nupi Keithel (literally, women’s market) says it’s time the authorities reopen the market, where licensed store owners sold a variety of wares ranging from vegetables and fruits to toys and textiles, fish and spices.

“The closure of the market not only affects the women vendors, but also the money lenders and product suppliers,” Bina Devi,a resident of Imphal West district, explained. “So the government should work out a method to reopen the market by allowing shops to open on a rotational basis.”

Tracing its roots back to the 16th century, Nupi Keithel, also known as Ima Keithel (mother’s market), is reputed to be one of the oldest all-women markets in Asia. Its closure has badly hurt the livelihoods of woman vendors hosted by the market, whose closure chief minister N Biren Singh has promised to review after a meeting with vendors.

“The government should reopen the market by introducing necessary arrangements as

IMPHAL:

per existing guidelines,” said Laishram Mema Devi, 70, who sold handmade jewellery at the market for about four decades until it was shut on March 21, 2020, to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease.

“As you know, everyone who depends on these markets is suffering a lot due to the closure,” she added.

An independent social researcher based in Imphal has calculated the loss from the 10-month closure of Nupi Kiethel at ₹3,879 crore.

“If we calculate the number of closure days and number of license holding women vendors at the Nupi Keithel along with the average per day establishment profit based on available official data, it has caused this loss,” the researcher, Serto Tondana Kom, claimed.

Until January 19, the closure had lasted 304 days. Nupi Keithel hosted 3, 614 license holding vendors. Assuming that each woman vendor earned ₹353 per day -- the per capital state gross domestic product -the loss to the 3,614 vendors worked out to ₹12, 75,742 a day and ₹3,879 crores in 304 days, Kom added.

The researcher says the state government should act to bring relief to the vendors on the lines of the financial assistance it provided to residents of Manipur who were stranded outside the state during the initial days of the lockdown that followed the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.