New Delhi, Dec 11 (PTI) As farmers protesting the Centre's agriculture laws began heading home from Delhi's Singh border on Saturday after a successful culmination of their year-long sit-in, traders of the area hoped for revival of business.

Several vendors of the area said transportation of raw materials was one of the major issues the region faced due to blockaded roads.

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Gulshan Rathi, a motorcycle shop owner on the Haryana side of Singhu Border in Kundli, said the farmers never posed any trouble for them.

"We never had anything against the farmers but we had our own problems which no one was ready to hear about. We were caught between the farmers and the government.

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"It is a commendable step that the farmers have decided to go back. Now lives and businesses here will also return on track," Rathi said.

Kundli is an industrial area where many factories, vehicle showrooms, warehouses, stores and shops are located.

Thousands of farmers, primarily from Punjab and Haryana, had occupied a five-six-kilometre stretch of the main Delhi-Chandigarh highway near Singhu border to press for their demands.

Anupama Devi, 35, who runs a roadside tea stall, hopes her business will be restored after the farmers vacate the road stretch.

She said that before the agitation started, she used to earn around 1,500 per day.

"Ever since the farmers claimed the street here, earnings came down to around Rs 1,000 as they do not generally consume tobacco products which I sell. I hope that now my business will pick up," the woman said, with her one-year-old son clinging to her lap.

A resident of Begusarai in Bihar, Anupama Devi lives in Kundli with her husband Rupesh, who was a factory worker but met with an accident.

"After the accident, he was kicked out of the job and we then started the makeshift tea stall. Our earning was decent but it was reduced after the movement started. I hope things to get better," she added.

She said the farmers never troubled them and even gave them food to eat.

Ajay Sharma, who owns a wholesale business of electrical items, said supply of goods was the main problem he faced during the protest due to road blockades.

"Our goods come from Delhi but due to the blockade on the highway, it not only began to come late but also became costlier. Now, we expect things to return to normal. We suffered huge losses in business first due to COVID-19 and then because of the agitation," he said.

Convoys of tractor trolleys, cars and other vehicles carrying the protesters rolled down towards various parts of Punjab and Haryana, from where they had reached the protest site in the last week of November 2020, demanding a repeal of three farm laws enacted by the Centre.

The Centre finally repealed the laws on November 29 this year, but the farmers kept the protest going as their other demands, including a legal guarantee on MSP and withdrawal of cases against them, were pending.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of 40 farm unions, on Thursday suspended over the year-long protest after the central government agreed to fulfil their pending demands.

Balbir Singh, who runs a transport business, said heavy vehicles carrying raw materials had to stop far away from the factories in the area due to the barricades.

"Then again it had to be fetched in small batches due to the road blockades. That not only wasted hours but also resulted in increased cost due to extra labour, extra fuel and transportation charges. I hope that business will revive now," he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)