Haryana allows hotels, bars and restaurants to operate with 50% capacity

The government also removed the restrictions in timings imposed earlier.

Haryana on Sunday announced a new set of relaxations and allowed shopping malls, restaurants, bars, gyms and spas to reopen with certain restrictions from Monday onwards. However, the government extended the Covid-19 restrictions under the Mahamari Alert-Surakshit Haryana till August 23.

A commuter seen outside the Vyapar Kendra market, in Gurugram ( Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)

The government also removed the restrictions in timings imposed earlier. While malls have been allowed to operate maintaining Covid-19 appropriate measures, restaurants and bars have been asked to operate with 50 per cent of their seating capacity.

Gyms and spas have also been asked to operate in a similar fashion. The government has also asked clubhouses, restaurants and bars inside golf courses to function with a 50 per cent seating capacity. Committees in these golf courses were asked to allow golfers and visitors to play in a staggered manner in order to avoid overcrowding.

The government has also allowed the reopening of swimming pools but has recommended that the staff gets vaccinated along with eligible visitors.

The Haryana government asked authorities to ensure that all restaurants, bars, gyms and spas along with hotels and malls should be regularly sanitized.

The state has witnessed a drop in the number of fresh Covid-19 cases in recent weeks. The positivity rate in Haryana in the last week of July stood at 0.09 per cent, much lower than the 27 per cent recorded at the peak of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in April-May. Haryana reported 18 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, which have taken its tally to 770,060. It also reported one Covid-19 related fatality and now the state's death toll stands at 9,648.