Shrinking Clientele

Owner of a beauty parlour in Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar area, Dixit has been finding it difficult to support her family of four on her monthly income of Rs 80,000. Their monthly household expenditure has jumped 25 per cent to Rs 75,000 in a year. The rise in the prices of pulses, vegetables and consumer goods apart, the things that she needs for her business have also become costlier. Waxing kits, for example. Their cost has gone up from Rs 900 per kit earlier to Rs 1,200 now. However, while her expenses have increased, Shrinkhala's income has not; if anything, business has been lacklustre in the wake of the pandemic. “Some of my clients have stopped coming because they think make-up is now a luxury,” she says. She has a car but the high fuel prices are a deterrent. “I want the government to reduce fuel prices and control the prices of essential goods,” she says.