The Chandigarh Administration in its decision on Wednesday imposed restrictions on gatherings due to surge in the Covid-19 cases. (Representational) A day after the Chandigarh Administration announced a cap on indoor gatherings, to the dismay of the hospitality industry, city hoteliers said that bookings has been done for several weddings and they will suffer losses.
Meanwhile, some hotels resorted to last minute changes of shifting indoor wedding venues to outdoors to accommodate the guests, some moved to Panchkula– entirely changing the venue.
Ginnie Chawla, a hotelier, also said that requests for cancellation are also pouring in. “I had a booking of 150 people this week and many other bookings later. Now what do we do–people are asking for money and cancelling their bookings,” Chawla said.
He added, “At the same time, people are shifting wedding venues to Panchkula. At least there should have been some specific orders as to till when this rule will be applicable. For holi parties too, people are now moving to Panchkula.”
Chawla also said that the Tricity must have a uniform policy.
“There should be a uniform policy for Panchkula, Chandigarh and Mohali. Why is it that every city is having different rules when they are interrelated. My friend was telling that hotels in Panchkula have also hiked the rates a bit due to their monopoly now,” he added.
Sources said that those who had bookings of 150 people indoors are shifting it to outdoors as 200 people are allowed to gather in open spaces.
“In indoor gatherings, we had booking of 150 people and because only 100 are allowed now, no one can ask 50 people not to come, so in that case we are moving all of them to the lawn outside because in open spaces the government has imposed a limit of 200 people,” said a hotelier requesting anonymity.
He added, “But there should be some check everywhere. What about dance clubs where over 500 people are dancing on weekends. We request the administration to conduct checks there too.”
The UT Administration in its decision on Wednesday imposed restrictions on gatherings due to surge in the Covid-19 cases. At the same time, it was decided to keep primary schools shut.
The decisions were taken in a war room meeting held by Chandigarh Administrator VP Singh Badnore.
“It was decided that the Chandigarh Administration will impose restrictions on the number of people which were earlier allowed to gather in social, cultural, religious and family functions. The maximum number for indoor gathering will be 100 or 50 per cent of the capacity of the venue, whichever is lower. With regards to the outdoor gatherings, the number was restrained to 200, which is the same as the restrictions imposed by the Punjab government,” said a statement issued by the administration.