The Gujarat Information Department released a statement about the grand success of the Ahmedabad Shopping Festival (ASF) on Thursday afternoon. The first press note released around 3 pm mentioned ₹69 crore+ sales and a record over 20% revenue growth. Two hours later, another press note was released.
This time, the sales figures jumped to an eye-popping ₹69,000 crore! A scale-up of 10,000 times! The release goes on to boast a record 20% revenue growth, but no comparative figures of earlier sales have been released, raising questions about how they arrived at the record growth figure.
The release states that the first phase saw 20 lakh visitors to the festival. If we go by the sales figure of ₹69,000 crore in October 2024, it roughly translates to every visitor having spent ₹3,45,000.
As per the release, PM Modi inaugurated the ASF in 2019 to celebrate the city’s rich heritage, empower businesses and artisans, and boost the tourism sector. Building on this vision, CM Bhupendra Patel launched the grand ‘Ahmedabad Shopping Festival’ on Dussehra, on October 12, 2024. So, five shopping festivals have been organised in the city till now, then what begs the question is why has the state government not released any year-wise sales figures when business is booming.
The shopping festival is organised in collaboration with the Amdavad Municipal Corporation and the Government of Gujarat. So, we called up Deputy Municipal Commissioner Mirant Pareek to understand how the figure of ₹69,000 crore was arrived at. Pareek told Gujarat Samachar Digital, “The calculation of this ₹69,000 crore has been based on the difference between the GST revenue of October 2023 and the revenue of October 2024.” However, when probed further, he hung up.
The press release goes on to mention 20 lakh visitors to the festival in the first phase from October 12 to November 1. This means, roughly 1 lakh people visited the four major shopping districts – Sindhu Bhavan Road, C G Road, Nikol Modern Street, and Kankaria Rambag Road – and 14 prominent hotspots daily in the city.
ASF began on October 12 and will last until Uttarayan, a total of 95 days. The festival is divided into three phases: from October 12 to November 1, November 11 to December 13, and December 15 to January 15, 2025.
Exciting initiatives such as maximum discounts, lucky draws, coupons, and attractive prizes boosted the revenue of participating stores, the statement claims. In illuminated areas such as CG Road, sales across 30-40 stores saw an increase of 12-15%. It concludes by stating that overall, the ASF achieved an impressive ₹69,904 crore in sales during October 2024, marking a 20.5% growth compared to October 2023.