The business generally grows with a lot of newly sprung-up shops at the footpath markets a few weeks ahead of the Eid. But their sales have fallen sharply this year, as the buying capacity of their target customers has not increased in proportion to the increased prices of commodities.

Omar Faruk, who has been doing business on the footpath for the last six years and has set up his shop in Purana Paltan for this Eid, said sales have been quite low also because of a sharp rise in the number of shops on the footpath.

With the elections ahead, the government does not want to anger the petty businessmen and has allowed vendors to sit on both sides of the footpath, he explained. "As a result customers have spread among many shops," he added.

Omar said in the past he used to make sales of around Tk 15,000-20,000 during the last four-five days of Eid, but the sales have decreased this year by Tk 5,000-10,000.

Naimuddin, who sells children's clothes on the footpath in front of the Baitul Mukarram, thinks that many customers now prefer shopping in their home-towns, that has resulted in the fall of business on the city's footpaths.

Moreover, as the industrial units especially the garment factories are being shifted to the outskirts of the city and many new ones are also being built, markets have grown there over the last few years, which naturally attract shoppers living in those places, he said.

Another footpath vendor Khabiruddin has a three feet by three feet shop on the footpath in front of the New Market, selling jeans trousers. He said his sales have fallen as rickshaws are not allowed to enter the road in front of the New Market.

"Our main clients are the lower income group people, who generally travel by rickshaws. Since rickshaws cannot enter the region, the shoppers go to other markets," he said.

Md Oli, another small businessman at Karwan Bazar selling readymade clothes, said most items sold this year on the city's footpaths were Chinese. "These items are relatively expensive, so the profit margin has consequently come down," he said.

Again people's taste also seems to have changed, Oli pointed out. Youths of the lower income bracket, who were the loyal customers of these footpath shops, now prefer going to shopping malls and instead of buying two-three trousers from the footpaths they would rather buy one from an expensive store, he said.