Day 1 of relaxations: Fewer traffic jams, happy shopkeepers

Ludhiana: On the first day of 5pm closing time on Monday, traders and food business owners heaved a sigh of relief. However, confusion prevailed among some city shopkeepers, who came to know about the Sunday orders of extending closing time only a day later.
As people got more time to shop, traffic snarls were not the same as last week and were witnessed only at a few places, including the Railway Station Road. The number of people thronging the markets, too, was not as high as when the closing time was early, especially when it was noon. However, some things didn’t change, like a handful of people roaming without masks.
Due to drop in coronavirus cases, deputy commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma had on Sunday announced several relaxations for shopkeepers and traders, especially those in the food business. According to the new orders, shops, private offices and other establishments can now remain open till 5pm instead of 3pm from Monday to Friday. Food outlet owners, who were allowed to make home deliveries till 9pm, have been permitted to do so on weekends too.
Sunil Mehra, state general secretary of the Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal, said, “We are grateful to the administration for accepting our demand and are happy with the closing time of 5pm. We came to know about the orders of the DC on Monday as these were issued after 10.30pm on Sunday. However, shopkeepers were able to manage the operations well.”
Food business owners were happy to be allowed to do home deliveries on weekends. Bhupinder Singh Basant, senior vice-chairman of Punjab Traders’ Board, said, “We are thankful to the DC and the government for allowing home deliveries throughout the week till 9pm. It will give a new lease of life to our businesses. We have also suggested to the chief minister to allow this relaxation in all other districts of Punjab as well so that the hotel and restaurant industry, which has suffered heavy losses due to the pandemic, can be revived.”
Terming the change in timings as a big victory for traders, Gurdeep Singh Gosha, president of Business Bachao Morcha, said, “Ever since the lockdown came into effect, we have been demanding that the closing timing of the shops and offices should be 5pm. We tried our best and finally the administration woke up to the woes of the shopkeepers and traders. The result of extending the timing is fewer jams and no crowding in markets.”