Pune: Municipal Corporation (PMC) has issued fresh guidelines to be followed for reopening of malls, hotels, lodges and guest houses in the city from August 5. PMC has asked the mall management to keep a room vacant to shift and isolate any person who displays symptoms of COVID-19 while being present at the mall and immediately inform the nearby civic hospital or health officer about the incident.

PMC Commissioner Vikram Kumar in his order has advised the management of malls, hotels and lodges to regulate the number of visitors, encourage contact-less digital payments, install foot-pedal sanitiser dispensers at all locations, frequent sanitisation of commonly used areas like escalators, lifts etc and to operate air conditioner devices as per Central Public Works Department (CPWD) norms in the range of 24 to 30 degree Celsius with a relative humidity of 40 to 70 per cent.

Some other guidelines include

• Only asymptomatic people shall be allowed to enter the premises

• Markings on floors and walls should be done to ensure physical and social distancing

• Make specific pathways for entering and exiting the building with proper markings

• Preventive measures at common areas like the parking lot, food plazas

• Install protective glass screen at reception

• Thermal scanning of visitors at the entrance

• Place foot-pedal sanitiser dispenser at all possible common areas

• Employees and customers should be provided with face masks and hand gloves

• Encourage e-wallet, QR code-based contactless digital payments

• Any form filling should be done online

• All restrooms must be cleaned and sanitised frequently and at regular intervals

• While using escalators, visitors should be encouraged to skip a step while standing, to maintain physical distancing

• Number of people entering lift should be regulated

• Senior citizens above 65 years of age, persons with comorbidities, children below the age of 10 years and pregnant women should not be allowed to enter premises

• Use of Aarogya Setu app is mandatory

• Physical and social distancing by maintaining a distance of six feet between two individuals should be enforced strictly.