Retailers of Delhi & Haryana urge govt to lift restrictions; demand to stay open till late hours

New Delhi, Feb 11 (KNN) The Retailers Association of India (RAI) has reached out to the governments of Delhi and Haryana to remove the restrictions on timings and allow establishments to stay open and operate till late hours.

“Having learned from prior experience of handling the earlier waves, the state government of Maharashtra came up with a very different way of handling the situation. They kept a full handle on the number of hospitalisations and as much as possible made sure that businesses were able to continue as usual. Now, Maharashtra has gone ahead and lifted most of the restrictions allowing stores and retail establishments to remain open for longer hours realising that shorter hours create crowds,” said Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India (RAI) in a statement calling out the governments to consider their request.

This has led to the steady decline in COVID-19 cases and hospitalisation rates across the country, most of the other states too have now allowed retail businesses to be open till late hours so that there is no crowding at any point in time, he added.

Retailers in Delhi and Haryana are in great worry as stores are still not allowed to stay open till late, which is creating a big impact on businesses while not helping solve the crowding issue, Rajagopalan, pointed out.

“We do hope that Delhi and Haryana take a leaf from states like Maharashtra and allow all formats of retail to be open till late and be in consonance with practices across the country to accelerate the return to normalcy,” he said. (KNN/ KT)