E-Paper
Businesses reopen in Pune under safety cover after 2 months
Cleaning shops, checking stock, taking steps to sanitise customers and following norms are shop owners top priorities as they face labour shortages and count financial losses
After two months of lockdown, Laxmi road, Bajirao road, Tilak road and Jungli Maharaj road sprung back to life after non-essential shop owners reopened their businesses on Wednesday.
The staff at these shops were seen cleaning, checking stock and even attending to customers after Pune municipal commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad issued fresh guidelines on Tuesday.
Shop owners have now been allowed to open their businesses on certain days of the week. The civic chief has granted permission to owners dealing in jewellery, electronics, mobiles, stationery, automobile parts, home appliances, utensils and others to reopen shops in non-containment zones.
Yogendra Ashtekar, owner of Ashtekar jewellers shop, said, “We reopened our shop after 65 days. We are following the rules and regulations laid by authorities. Customers are sanitised.”
The owner of DK Traders, Dhiraj Parmar, a cloth shop on Laxmi road said, “The first thing we did after reopening the shop is cleaning and checking stocks. We are following social distancing norms. The main problem we face now is that all our workers have gone back to their villages.”
Nitesh Chopda, owner of Nataraj cloth shop, demanded more clarity from PMC on guidelines.
“There is confusion in the order given by PMC. Most of us have reopened the shops, but there are specific days given by the civic body regarding category of shops. It’s all confusing as of now,” he said.
Mahendra Bora, another shop owner, said, “The lockdown has impacted 40 to 50 per cent of businesses. We have paid staff salaries and most of them who have returned to hometowns are unwilling to return this year. Without staff, it is going to be difficult to run shops.”
On Jungli Maharaj road and Fergusson college road, several non-essential shops of electronics, cloth, women accessories and food items reopened. People were seen walking on these areas during daytime, taking home food parcel from prominent hotels like Goodluck café.
Kiran Pisal, who had come to get food parcel, said, “It’s good that relaxation has been implemented in non-red zones, but we should follow social distancing and other health safety norms.”
In Pimpri-Chinchwad, businesses are allowed to remain open, apart from industries in rural and urban areas, private construction sites, private offices, government offices and I-T companies. The supply of essential and non-essential goods, courier and postal services, food home delivery in non-red zones has been allowed.
A picture of relaxation was seen at several non-containment zones in the PCMC area like Tanajinagar, Akurdi road, Ajmera colony, Pradhikaran, Chinchwadgaon, and in some parts of Pimpri. Most of the non-essential shops were seen open and citizens bought goods with proper social distancing.
