Delhi Unlock Latest News: As the national capital is unlocking itself in a phased manner after COVID cases went down, the Chamber of Trade and Industry (CTI) on Friday urged the Arvind Kejriwal government to allow marriage functions to be held in hotels and banquets during the next phase of unlock process. In a letter to the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), the trade body said that the business related to matrimonial programmes was suffering huge losses during this pandemic time. The CTI also demanded that at least 50 or more people in Delhi should be allowed for wedding functions in hotels, banquets and public places.
“At present, there is a ban on marriage ceremonies in public places in Delhi. The DDMA has allowed marriages only at home or in court. Due to this, the business related to matrimonial programs is in great loss,” the CTI said in the letter to Chief Minister Kejriwal.
In the letter, CTI chairman Brijesh Goyal and president Subhash Khandelwal said that the resident of Delhi are now getting married in Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Sonipat as neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have allowed wedding programmes with 50 guests.
“Due to this, the employment of about five lakh businessmen related to Delhi’s banquet, hotel, textile, sweets, jewellery, tent, catering, photograph, make-up etc has come to a standstill,” the letter stated.
The traders also said that the a lot of people who deal with wedding-related businesses had taken advance bookings from the clients, which they have had to return.
On the other hand, the Delhi Banquet and Hoteliers officials also urged the Delhi government to allow at least 50 or more people to participate in the marriage programmes.
As the number of COVID-19 cases decreasing over the last few weeks, the national capital has been witnessing a phased unlock process, under which factories, markets and salons among other services have been allowed to resume operations gradually.
On Friday, the national capital recorded four more COVID-19-related deaths, the lowest since March 21, and 115 new cases with a positivity rate of 0.15 per cent. The new fatalities pushed the death toll due to the infection to 24,952, it said.
The national capital had recorded four deaths on March 30 and an equal number of fatalities on March 23, while it recorded a single fatality on March 21.
Despite the recent fall in daily cases, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has cautioned that chances of a third Covid wave are quite real, asserting that his government is preparing on a “war-footing” to combat it. Delhi had been reeling under a brutal second wave of the pandemic.