Maharashtra: We won’t survive another lockdown, say industry associations

Cinema retail and shopping industries wonrsquot be able to bear another lockdown industry associations said on Thursday urging Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to not impose a lockdown in MaharashtraMultiplex Association of India MAI Retail Association of India RAI and Shopping Centres Association of India SCAI said they were following all the safety protocols of the government but a lockdown will hit the business which was in the recovery processMaharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope recently said people should be ready for stringent measures in the coming days to curb the spread of COVID19 and that imposing a lockdown is the last option for the state governmentlsquoNeed to coexistrsquoKamal Gianchandani CEO PVR Pictures and MAI president said the cinema industry is mentally reconciled with the fact that they will have to ldquocoexist with the virus for some timerdquoldquoTherersquos a sense of deacutejagrave vu for sure because we all have painful memories of the lockdownrdquo he told PTI in an interview He said businesses should be permitted to function because thatrsquos the only way for them to sustainldquoIf we canrsquot function the whole cycle comes to a stop and then we cannot sustain ourselves So if at all theyrsquore thinking of a second lockdown we would urge them to reconsider their decision and take a much more longterm and pragmatic approachldquoBusinesses the economy and the virus have to coexist You canrsquot manage and contain one at the cost of the other Itrsquos not an eitheror situation anymore It has to be an lsquoandrsquo situationrdquo he addedSeveral films like ldquoHaathi Mere Saathirdquo Hindi version ldquoBunty Aur Babli 2rdquo and ldquoChehrerdquo that were up for release in March and April have been pulled by the makers from the calendar due to uncertainty amid the pandemiclsquoWould be kneejerk reactionrsquoKumar Rajagopalan CEO RAI told PTI that a lockdown would be a nonanalytical and kneejerk reactionldquoBecause it means we have given up hope that we can control the situation that in the last one year we have not learnt anything new So this is a really nontenable situation and who can surviveldquoIf retail does not get money then the suppliers do not get money and if suppliers do not get money then the factories cannot operate And if the factories do not operate then it has an overall effect all across the system The government does not get taxes and the employment will also go downrdquo Rajagopalan saidMukesh Kumar chairman and director on board of the SCAI said the industry is already suffering because of the previous decisions of the government like mandatory testing for the mall and reducing the timingsldquoWe are just recovering We have reached almost 60 per cent of the footfall and 90 per cent of sales in March but then it started going downhill once the notification came about checking people coming to the mall and that they must have a negative RT PCR report Then the second news came about reducing the timings so these were all bad newsldquoLetrsquos hope that this doesnrsquot happen because we will not be able to take another lockdown Another shutdown will be discriminatory only for the malls theatres and FampBrdquo Kumar told PTIThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever