Though restaurants in the city have opened following lockdown relaxations, its owners are not happy with the timings set by the administration for home deliveries. Stating that they receive most of their orders in the evening hours, restaurateurs say the administration must allow home delivery during evening hours.
Currently, home deliveries are allowed between 7am to 7pm.
As per the eatery owners, most residents are already apprehensive about ordering from outside due to fear of infection. “We get very few orders during the day as most residents are wary of the virus spread. Besides, the timings set by the administrations aren’t conducive. The few orders that we get are around lunch time,” says Parampal Singh, owner of Kays Lovely Food, Jamalpur.
Bhupinder Singh, the owner of Ice Cream Parlour, Basant restaurant, and The Table restaurant, said, “These days due to the rising temperature, most residents don’t eat fast food during the day. Besides, they prefer having ice-cream post dinner, which is why the time slot of 7am to 7pm, does not work for us.”
He added that due to the time restriction, they are not able to accept most of the orders. “The administration must allow home deliveries from 1pm to 11pm,” Bhupinder said, stating that in the past one week, sale of food and ice-cream in his eatery has been 15% of the normal.
{{/usCountry}}He added that due to the time restriction, they are not able to accept most of the orders. “The administration must allow home deliveries from 1pm to 11pm,” Bhupinder said, stating that in the past one week, sale of food and ice-cream in his eatery has been 15% of the normal.
{{/usCountry}}SHORTAGE OF DELIVERY BOYS
With large-scale migrant exodus, most restaurants are also facing shortage of manpower.
Bhupinder says, “The online home delivery service company has reduced the salary of delivery boys due to which the number most of them are unwilling to continue. Due to this, there is a shortage of delivery boys and now delivery takes around an hour as compared to earlier when it took just about 20 minutes.”
Manjit Singh, president of the Ludhiana hotel and restaurant association, said that not all restaurants in city have opened as some of them don’t provide home delivery service and dining-in is not allowed yet. “Further, those who have started functioning are also not able to serve food during evening hours when the demand is more,” he said.