With earnings amounting to almost nothing, store owners at Elante Mall in Chandigarh are finding it hard to pay rent and salaries of employees during the national lockdown imposed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nikhil Mittal, the owner of a store at Elante mall said, "We are only selling essential bakery items which are not even 10 percent of the entire sale. It is a 100 percent loss for everyone. Putting the entire burden on store owners like paying rent and salaries to employees is unfair. The government should do something about it."
As regards expectations from the administration, Mittal said, "The government must clarify and give some notification to the owners as to what we should do and how we can pay rents."
Another store owner in the same mall said that the "losses are not just in revenue because the revenue is zero". "If we talk of losses, it is going in the negative as the expenses are not reducing. We are not sure what the mall would do with regards to the rentals," he said.
When asked about what the government can do towards providing help to the business community, he said: "There are small gestures that a government can make to make the business community feel that they matter--it is not just about the people who are below the poverty line or the migrant labourers. What about the people who are giving them employment? We are paying taxes and we are also generating employment."
Charanjiv Singh, chairman of Chandigarh Beopar Mandal said that with no source of revenue, giving out paychecks for the month of April would be difficult.
"We request the government to take out some scheme that would provide unemployment allowance to the staff so that ends are met. We can provide the ration funds but it would be difficult to provide the full salary," he said.
"The rent of these shops is very high. How can we pay rent if shops are closed? The government must provide some subsidy or the owner must take only 50 percent of the rent. There must be some sort of an administrative order that should be passed or else there would be friction with the owners," said Singh.
( With inputs from ANI )