Around 900 shops gutted, crores lost in Bagree Market blaze

Kolkata: With just a month left for the Durga Puja to commence, businessmen from Bagree Market stare at colossal losses due to the fire that struck on Sunday, affecting around 900 business establishments. As the festival season is here, the shop-owners stocked goods in large volume. Despite their sincere efforts, nothing could be saved from the blaze.

According to the local businessmen, due to the festive season, the warehouses were filled with goods worth several crores of rupees. Due to this devastating fire, not a single thing could be saved. Not only the owners, even the employees of the shops at Bagree Market are in a bad shape.

As the goods burnt into ashes, the shop-owners and employees are trying to come to terms with the huge loss that each one of them has incurred.

The employees who work in those shops will get their payments late as everything has been destroyed. "I am the only earning member in the family. The bonus is due for next month. I do not know what to do. I cannot force the shop-owner to pay me," said Avijit Biswas, an employee from a medicine shop.

Another businessman from the locality, Sahil Khan, informed that approximately per day, the sale of a shop during the normal time of the year is around Rs 80,000 per day. The amount of sale varies between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh per day, mainly before the festive seasons.

"As the Puja is just a month away, shop-owners have stocked twice the amount of goods they usually do. For this, some of them had also taken loans. All the goods are burnt and destroyed. Shop-owners from Bagree Market will need a lot of time to recover from this loss," he said.

According to the locals, a large number of shops on the ground floor are those of medicine and gift outlets.

On the first floor, imitation jewellery and plastic material shops were there. From the second floor onwards, there were several wholesale shops and warehouses. As the fire engulfed the whole building, starting from the first floor, nothing could be saved from the towering inferno.