Sweater market Fire: TYC visits fire victims, offers donation
DHARAMSALA, 23 Jan: The Tibetan Youth Congress has extended its “support and solidarity to the Tibetan families,” devastated by the fire mishap.
“We extended our support and solidarity to the Tibetan families in Ambala, whose winter sweater selling shops were completely burned down to ashes by an unfortunate fire incident,” The TYC stated on its official Facebook handle as the organisation’s General Secretary Sonam Tsering and Tibetan Researcher Ngawang Yarphel visited the Potala Tibetan refugee sweater market in Ambala city in Haryana where at least 10 shops were gutted by a massive fire in the early hours of Friday morning.
The largest Tibetan NGO in exile has offered ₹1 lakh as an immediate donation while further promising to help raise donations through its Regional chapters and urging the general public for their continued support.
While it is yet to be ascertained how much loss it has incurred on the Tibetan store owners, the unfortunate incident has added more woe to the business which was already on the slow side due to the pandemic.
Tibetan refugees across Delhi, Dalhousie, Dharamsala, Srinagar and South India set up their stores in the market popularly known as the Tibetan woollen market. The Tibetans who are largely uneducated and unemployed take loans from banks and sweater merchants to make a living during the winter season.
The 10 Tibetan families whose livelihood was destroyed by the blaze have opened their store at the Potala Tibetan refugee sweater market in Ambala on 17 Nov 2021.
Earlier in 2016, a fire, reportedly caused by a short circuit, ravaged the entire Tibetan refugee sweater market near Red Fort in Delhi with 140 stores incurring a huge loss amounting to 12 crore rupees.
