NEW DELHI: Restaurant industry in the national capital was largely hit yet again with fresh curbs
being imposed by the Delhi government on Sunday, following the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA)’s order to close all restaurants and bars in the city.
On December 28, the DDMA had issued the ‘yellow’ alert under the Covid Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), under which restaurants were allowed to operate at 50 per cent capacity between 8 am and 10 pm. However, a weekend curfew was declared when Covid cases continued to rise.
Under this, dine-in was not permitted, but restaurants could make food deliveries. Owing to the major rise in Covid cases and fatalities in the city, the DDMA ordered the closure of restaurants and bars until further orders but allowed only ‘Take-away’ services.
Anshu Tandon, president, Khan Market Welfare Association, said, “There are certain bars and lounges which are there to provide people the ambiance, and don’t offer deliveries. It’ll be a huge setback for them.” He added, “We have about 35 outlets in Khan Market itself. It’s very difficult to say if the whole staff will be kept or not.
It depends on the individual restaurants, but it’s unfair to the staff as to how many times they will be left jobless. People have barely recovered from the losses since the pandemic began” The Delhi co-chapter head of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) on January 7 had tagged the Chief Minister and Delhi Police requesting intervention in resolving e-pass problems for the F & B industry. “We aren’t getting the passes. We’ll be compelled to shut down delivery as well if this isn’t resolved right away,” tweeted NRAI.
Mohit Nanda, president, Restaurant Association, said, “We are taking no dine out, only take away, but either everything should be shut for 14 days or everything should be allowed to function with restrictions. We can pay our staff for a couple of days, but the electricity bill is also on the rise. Kejriwal should pay for subsidy bills. It’s not even 10 per cent sale for delivery because people prefer to come to restaurants.”
Restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani questioned, “Despite the 50 per cent capacity norms, there are queues in the market with no social distancing reforms. Then, how is this thoughtful?”