Ahead of Lockdown 4.0, shop owners, retailers want Covid-19 restrictions to be relaxed

Shop owners and retailers in the city, who have been badly impacted by the ongoing lockdown to counter the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak,

Shop owners and retailers in the city, who have been badly impacted by the ongoing lockdown to counter the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak, want the government to announce relaxations as businesses have been severely impacted and many of them are unable to pay salaries to their employees and rents to their property owners. The Retailers Association of India (RAI) has now written to Haryana chief minister, seeking relief from the curbs that have been imposed on business activities.

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Business owners said that opening of shops only twice a week that was allowed in Lockdown 3.0 is not enough for sustainable retail operations as a large majority of buyers prefer to remain indoors. “Shops selling non-essential products and services open only twice a week and this has hindered businesses badly. It is time that we start living with Covid 19 and allow economy to revive,” said Pankaj Tomar, a business owners, who said that paying rentals has become a difficult proposition.

Gurugram has around 40 malls and shopping centres spread across the city and all of them have been closed since the authorities announced the lockdown on March 24. The city has been designated as an orange zone but the restrictions imposed on people and business have been strict due to its close proximity to Delhi and the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the district.

The Retailers Association of India (RAI) , which represents over 13,000 retail businesses in the country, said that over 3 million people in Haryana are employed in this industry particularly in Gurugram and the business has been affectedly badly.

“At least 3 million people are involved in retail jobs across Haryana and particularly in Gurugram, which is a retail hub with over 35 to 40 malls, which are visited by people from all across the National Capital Region(NCR). Opening of the malls and other establishments is crucial to create demand as otherwise the supply chain and manufacturing would not be able to function. We have written to the Haryana government to open up retail with adequate safeguards, such as social distancing,” said Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, RAI.

The letter written by RAI to the Haryana government on Monday said, “We are writing to request you to permit opening of mall in all zones except containment zone under a mandated standard operating procedure(SOP). The mall eco-system is critical to economic revival and employment generation in manufacturing and retail sector. Malls act as the front-end for 45% of India’s organised retail (sic).”

The association further said that over 100 million jobs have been affected by the closure of malls and organised retail. Opening of malls will declog the inventory and supply chain of the manufacturing system. It also said that almost 12% of the electronic industry has occupancy in malls, 20% of malls are occupied by food and beverages industry, around 39% of footwear retails through malls.

Meanwhile, several shopkeepers in the HSVP markets in the city also said that they were struggling to pay rent as businesses were shut. “We have had no business for the last one month and the government should announce some relief in rentals for tenants,” said a shop owner on condition of anonymity.

A senior Haryana government official, when asked about the matter said that opening of malls and other establishments depends on the directions that would be issued by ministry of home affairs(MHA) for Lockdown 4.0, which starts from May 18. “The directions have to come from Centre,” he said, preferring anonymity.