The deserted road to Birgunj, near the Indian Customs and Immigration offices at Raxaul border, on Wednesday
BETTIAH: Where traffic used to be a crawl, the road to the Nepalese metropolis of Birgunj, past the Indian Customs and Immigration offices at the Raxaul border, now lies deserted. The pandemic has taken away livelihoods. Hundreds of labourers from villages on our side who worked in factories dotting the Parsa-Bara industrial corridor in Nepal have been rendered jobless by the lockdown on both sides of the border, Mahesh Agarwal, Bihar President of the Seema Jagran Manch told TOI on Wednesday. Not only the daily wagers who trekked across the border but the other sectors of the economy, too, have been badly hit. Cross-border weddings have been hit, our roti-beti relationship with Nepal has been padlocked, Agarwal, whose grocery outlet on the border has seen an 80% fall in sales with cross-border customers locked out, rued.
Suggested InvestmentHorizon: >3 years
Time taken to doublemoney: N.AAshish Naik and Hitesh Das will manage the scheme and the fund will be benchmarked against the Nifty 500 TRI. The new fund offer closes on December 18.
“Disruption caused due to Covid-19 itself will present many opportunities in areas like technology, pharma and many other areas,” said Rupesh Bhansali, head (distribution), GEPL Capital. He believes the fund is for investors who understand such themes and first-time investors would be better off in plain vanilla diversified equity funds.
Since the fund is thematic, financial planners feel the portfolio will be concentrated. Given high investor interest in disruptors, the valuations of many such companies will be high. The business could take longer to generate profits leading to volatile price movements in the near term.