Cauvery cripples Mysore's business centre

With no end in sight, the month-old agitation against the Cauvery Water Tribunal Award has substantially eroded the business in Mysore's shopping centres of K R Circle and Devaraj Urs Road.

A minimum of six demonstrations, often accompanied by slogans and banners or a human chain at the busy K R Circle, and marches from there to the deputy commissioner's office, have been a common feature since the tribunal announced its award on February 5. The protest marches start around 10 am and often spill over into late afternoons.

This has not only dampened business in this commercial area but has been also hampering easy flow of traffic. Adding to the shopkeepers' agony is the unscheduled power cuts lasting for almost the whole day, including the best business hours in the evenings.

The sudden blackouts make the helpless businessmen switch on the generators, the carbon fumes of which in turn make shoppers desist from visiting this shopping area, let alone the pollution it causes.

"Our business is down 60 per cent," a dispirited manager of a government handloom textile showroom says. "We have Rs 20 lakh in stocks, but very few customers visit us," he laments.

"In fact, we are doing better at the discount sales away from this place," he remarks. "Much of our business is gone. We used to do around Rs 5,000 of business. Now, we do not make even half of that," says a worried footwear dealer, Ahmed.

"We do not know how to manage the rent and expenses this month," he adds. Similar are the complaints by shopowners on the Devaraj Urs Road and K R Circle. But what is interesting here that they back the ongoing agitations.

Despite a dismal business, the owner of a textile showroom at K R Circle argues in favour of the protests: "The protests are justified. Injustice has been done to Kannadigas."

But, like most of the other shopkeepers, he wonders why all the demonstrations should concentrate in this busy area.