NEW DELHI: Taking into consideration, the interests of the severely impacted food and beverages industry in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has initiated a dialogue with mall owners to resolve the bilateral concerns.
In a letter to the mall owners, NRAI has expressed two concerns — waiver of charges of rentals and a revised revenue sharing model, and sought their urgent intervention to help the beleaguered sector which is staring at closure without income as well any relief measures. “The mandated lockdown has forced us to shut shop and prevent the malls to allow entry to our guests, staff or suppliers. This is a clear case of force majeure and therefore all charges of rentals or common area maintenance for the duration of the lockdown needs to be waived off entirely,” NRAI stated.
Future rental arrangements need to be made keeping in mind the the Covid-19 crisis and how businesses will take some time to resume normalcy.The industry body don’t expect the volume of business in the post-pandemic period to be more than 30-40 per cent of the pre-lockdown numbers.
“Considering that the proportion of fixed operating expenses in our business is very high, this may lead to
massive operating losses to many businesses unless the expenses are brought down significantly and a critical expense like rentals is converted into a variable cost. The industry cannot operate on old costs with less than half of older revenue,” said NRAI President Anurag Katriar, adding the industry is still hopeful of a relief package from the Centre.