Ramzan fasting costs Paan dear

HYDERABAD: The ever-popular paan, that is chewed with relish in the city, has suddenly gone out of favour for many in the Old City. The falling sales have affected more than 5,000 paan shops in the city with the beginning of the month of Ramzan during which Muslims fast.
Before the commencement of the month of Ramzan, the Paanmandi in Sitarambagh clocked sales of up to 4,000 baskets of betel leaf thrice a week - on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays - the days of the mandi.
"But with Ramzan on, the sales have fallen to just about 2,500 on any given day," the Paan Mandi Association secretary S Narsimha Naidu told The Times of India.
Prior to the beginning of the month of Ramzan, betel leaf worth Rs 2 lakh used to be sold on each of the market days. Now all the wholesalers manage to sell is leaf worth about Rs 1.25 lakh on any of the market days, he added.
With a large number of paan shops falling in the Old City, this is a recurring phenomenon during the month of Ramzan. There are 15 wholesale paan suppliers in the 40-year-old Paan Mandi who supply the entire betel leaf for the twin cities, Naidu said.
It is not just that the local demand for the betel leaf has fallen, says Khader, a merchant who runs Abdul Khader Mohiuddin and Brothers, wholesale betel leaf shop in Paan Mandi. Even the amount of betel leaf being supplied from Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Rajampet and Kadapa has also decreased.
Khader also said that paan sales has seen a decline in the recent years with increase in the sales of gutkha.
"As much as 50 per cent of the paan market has already been effected with the illegal sale of gutkha which is freely available despite a government ban on its sale in the state," he said. Some demand for the paan leaf comes from places as far as Zaheerabad, he added.
Reflecting the decreased paan chewing during Ramzan, Shaker Hashmi runs a paan shop in Doodhbowli, said, "Normally, I chew 12 paans a day but with Ramzan fasting on, I just eat two pans, that too after iftaar in the evening."
Munnu Pan Shop owner Ahmed-bin-Sadi at Charminar, has been in the business from the last 40 years, said the sale of paan in the month of Ramzan every year goes down. The business has gone down from five baskets to three baskets of leaf a day now, he said.
However, Mohammed Afzal, who runs Al-Lazeez Pan Shop at Charminar, said one way of beating falling sales during the day is to keep the shop open till late in the night to cater to more number of customers. "We try to compensate for poor sales during the day in this manner," Mohammed Afzal, added.