Chandigarh: Some restaurants in Elante, F&B outlets set to remain shut

The mall management had served bills to store owners to pay rental charges for the lockdown period, which they say is not acceptable to them. The mall has asked owners to pay 50 per cent rent of the lockdown period, and 75 per cent rent till September. However, outlet owners said that the rents were huge and paying for lockdown period was ‘unjust’ when stores were completely shut.

Sumveer, President of the Punjab and Chandigarh chapter of National Restaurant Association of India said that they won’t open until their demands are met. “We won’t open the F&B outlets until the mall management listens to all our demands. It is highly unjust that we have to pay for lockdown period. Also, for this time when mall will open, they say we have to pay 75 per cent rent, which is huge. The mall management has not paid heed to our requests. Our outlets were closed, from where do we pay the rent when there is no income?” he asked.

Elante mall, however, has stated that (they are) “confident that all partners will smoothly resume operations.”

Meanwhile to tackle rush, the mall management has come up with a software that will sound detect if social distancing is not followed and an alert will be sounded to the security staff. Markings have been made inside the lifts too. At the entrance, visitors will have to go through three levels of checks- thermal scanning, sanitizing, and the last to check whether the visitor has the arogya setu app.

Meanwhile, most microbreweries in Sector 26 have decided to not open shop. Certain cafes in the city will be opening but say they will encourage takeaways due to less area of space in some.

CITY Covid-19 update

Six new cases of Covid-19 were reported from Chandigarh on Sunday. Of these, two cases emerged from Manimajra and Daria, and the rest from Bapu dham colony. The total number of cases in the city now stands at 314, with 35 active cases.

A 33-year-old CISF constable from Daria tested positive. He had been on leave to his hometown and had returned to Chandigarh, after which he was quarantined. In between the quarantine period, however, he reported for some work, after which he went back home and reported that he was feeling sick and later tested positive. As many as 12 contacts of the man have been traced and quarantined.

A 45-year-old businessman from Manimajra also tested positive.