How are rising costs affecting Tihar?

As Tihar approaches, vendors across Nepal face the challenges of rising costs and shifting consumer habits. This has led to economic uncertainty during this festive season. Shreya Shrestha of ApEx talked to three shop owners regarding their views on the present economic status.

Sonu Tamang, 28

I’ve been selling these flowers for two years, and it’s tough to care for them because they wither quickly. I’m a street vendor and I don’t have any equipment to keep them fresh so I have to get them from the dealer every day. There are many flowers in the market and the prices are considerably low yet customers continue to bargain, which can be disheartening. I normally sell flowers till the end of the Tihar because everyone needs them as they are needed in many rituals. These days people also grow their own flowers which means fewer customers.

Sandeep Khaitu, 39

We have been running a family business for nearly three years. There is no fixed number of sweets that we sell every year. It varies. People have different tastes and want different things. So its hard for us to decide what to focus on. The most popular sweets are rasbari, lal mohan, barfi, and laddu. But the ingredients required to make these sweets are becoming increasingly expensive, making it harder to sell them at prices that consumers might consider reasonable.

Nhiche Bahadur Prajapati, 72

My wife and I have been making things with clay for quite some time. We make diyo (traditional oil lamps) and many other household items out of clay. We are planning on making more diyos for Tihar because people use them during Laxmi Puja and Mha Puja. The raw material is quite expensive because we have to buy it from different vendors. Mud was once found locally but with so much construction going around, it’s difficult to source it these days. We have to raise the cost of our products accordingly and so now they are quite pricey.