kolkata despite the covid fear looming large footfalls at city jewellery shops on the auspicious akshay tritiya exceeded expectations amid the raging pandemic jewellers were happy to see that life has not halted in the cityjewellery shops following the restrictions on timings remained open from 12pm3pm on friday the long queue of cars at bowbazar was missing but customers dropped in compared to a complete shutdown last year it was a relief for nearly 350 jewellery shops that have witnessed the worst days since the pandemic broke out at gariahat shops witnessed a moderate turnout of customers even in the morning we did not expect such a turnout we were skeptical and more than 100 buyers visiting our store has far exceeded our expectation said rupak saha zonal member of gem and jewellery trade council of india gold has already been trading low in india in tune with the international market trend two days back gold price at the multi commodity exchange mcx dipped by rs 311 for 10 gm on friday gold in kolkata was hovering around rs 47130 for 10 gm may 5 rate of the yellow metal in kolkata was however the lowest in last couple of monthsrs 46400 for 10 gm prices increased after thatimagine what it was just a year back we were just been hit by the pandemic and everything was shutdown at least we have overcome the gloom to some extent said bablu dey of swarna shilpa bachao committee there are around 350 shops in bowbazar 250 in gariahat and around 100 in hatibagan most of them had a limited footfall on friday we cannot even expect the crowd to match past years levels at present many of the buyers are placing orders over phone and visiting the shops to make payment we are talking to our members to workout a homedelivery mechanism dey saidsuvankar sen ceo of senco gold and diamonds said that the stores that were open witnessed limited footfalls customers who purchased from the stores physically bought heavier festive pieces and wedding jewellery for the upcoming wedding season gold coins were also purchased from different stores sen said we had a good response which we never expected we thought buyers would stay away this time but they proved us wrong many of came maintaining covid19 protocol sales will not be very high but the spirit of kolkata has reinforced our faith said roopchand sawansukha director of sawansukha jewellers