Recession and depression were pushed to the backburner and Lucknow went almost berserk on Dhanteras, shopping and splurging to their heart’s content.
Dhanteras sales on Monday crossed the `550 crore-mark, a record in itself.
In an unprecedented move, Lucknowites bought up to 500 kg of gold and 1,000 kg of silver on Dhanteras, despite the high price of both the metals. The costliest silver item sold on Monday night was a lemon set costing around `98,000. The sale of diamonds also recorded an all-time high with a government officer purchasing a diamond necklace worth `50 lakhs. “This year, people even bought old, traditional jewellery for reasons related to design and purity. We had many customers asking for old jewellery and we have not started keeping old jewellery items that are sold to us by people for restoration and resale,” said a Punit Rastogi, a jeweller. About 700 cars worth `48 crores were sold on Dhanteras while motorbike sales crossed the 4,000-mark. This is almost double the number of vehicles sold in 2010. Cars from Maruti remained the first choice of buyers with Hyundai coming a close second.
Interestingly, the sale of utensils — a traditional item of purchase during the festival — picked up again and utensils worth `3 crores were sold in a single day.