Punjab Tent Dealers Welfare Association demands relief package for hospitality biz

LUDHIANA: After easing of lockdown restrictions a bit, the hospitality industry businessmen are now demanding that state government introduces a package for their industry which has suffered record losses.
Demanding government job for the family of the persons employed in hospitality industry , who lost their lives due to Covid-19 and with other demands a delegation of Punjab Tent Dealers Welfare Association (PTDWA) met deputy commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma on Tuesday and sent a memorandum to the chief minister through him.
Giving more information Shiv Shankar Rai, general secretary of the association said, “Hospitality industry has been the worst sufferer of the coronavirus and lockdown as there have been record number of closures, job losses in our industry as compared to any other sector. Be it hotel, restaurant, marriage palace or tent house owner, or caterer, event manager, florist, decorator everyone has suffered unprecedented losses. What is even worse that savings of businessmen and their employees have been exhausted and the bank loans on hospitality units have increased manifold. It seems likely that in coming days we will see huge number of people attached to our industry going bankrupt. It has been more than one year now and hospitality industry is the first to be closed due to lockdowns and the last one allowed to open even now when ever other trade and industry is running almost normally we are still facing huge restrictions like capping of 20 persons for each function etc”
Rai also added, “Our only hope now rests on the state government and if it does not take any action on our demand it is certain that results will be disastrous for everyone. We are thankful to the deputy commissioner Varinder Sharma for listening to our grievances and we are very much hopeful that our woes will be conveyed to the chief minister and chief secretary”
According to SS Makkar , president of PTWDWA , “We want to urge the government that before it is too late the people of our industry start dying due to hunger and starvation some relief package is introduced for us. Some of the immediate steps which government can take at the earliest include waiving off power charges for the lockdown period and reducing the rate of per unit of power for hotels, marriage palaces and restaurants. Besides this the government should also urge landlords who have rented or leased property for use as hotel, restaurant, marriage palace or tent house to waive off rent for at least three months and government should also come out with provision of giving job to the family of persons who lost their lives due to coronavirus and were working in the hospitality industry”