Curtail of Lockdown only to affected communities,says Vijay Kalantri, President – AIAI

The All India Association of Industries is a premier Chamber of Commerce working in interests of trade, industry and employment since 1956. Mr. Vijay Kalantri, President, AIAI said the lockdown post COVID19 disaster has destroyed trade near to completion and business losses amount to Rs 7-8 trillion during the 21-day period, round about  80,000 jobs are expected to be cut in the retail sector itself and   with the government revenue due to GST alone lost to about Rs 3 lakh cr/quarter .

In such a bizarre situation it is highly impractical for the government to move on with the same strategy that was invoked at the beginning of the complete lockdown. With testing of probable COVID19 infected increased in volume and the exact locations of various infected communities now defined. There needs to be a change in strategy to simplify the measures taken due to lockdown with the identification of the communities. Thus, there needs to be a retrospection of the degree of lockdown in the non affected areas.

Mumbai being one of the most affected due to the higher density of population especially in the slum areas and other areas where the density of population is higher than 10 persons /sqm. Thus  only such  areas need to be marked and contained .

Mr. Kalantrii, added that there is an urgent need that there should be an ease in movement with social distancing in place where there is no high rate of infliction of the COVID19 virus. So that businesses resume slowly and steadily on their own pace. The government and banking  departments being closed , the inflow of employees has already been restricted. Hence, there remains lesser risk for businesses to resume atleast their urgent operations  with restricted number of employees resuming on urgent functions.

Moreover, the unplanned, unpredictable and instantaneous lockdown without any clarity on the type and seriousness of the disease of COVID19, forced the businesses to closedown for a week presuming an almost certain  return . However, certainty of the ending of this lockdown seems to be far from the fact with the same being extended preposterously without any distinction to respite. Lot of unfinished, half done monetary transactions pertaining to accounts , payments have to be done and there seems to be no certainty about the COVID19 situation owing to non transparency and lacksidal approach of the government towards testing and containment of the affected . With numbers announced and declared being in total doubt.

Therefore, owing to the huge losses incurred and predicted  ,we suggest that,

1. Data regarding areas not declared as an emergency to be released immediately.
2. Affected areas to be market in color variants to depict seriousness of the affliction by COVID19
3. Such areas to be freed for movement with social distancing in place.
4. Mode of transport to such areas to be immediately started so as to facilitate travel.
5. Retail outlets to be opened as not only food items but at the same time stationary, computer peripherals are being required as people are working from home.

We hope our suggestions are accepted said Mr. Kalantri.