The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) wrote to the mayor and municipal commissioner on Thursday, demanding that private businesses and traders be allowed to operate at 50 per cent capacity in a limited time.
"Traders and small time businessmen have suffered immense loss in the past one year. Now, many of them are taking to the streets to protest, which is why we have written to the civic administration to consider their dilemma and allow private entities to function at 50 per cent capacity," said Prabhakar Shinde, group leader of BJP in BMC and senior corporator.
Shinde furthermore said that, if the local ward office remains vigilant and rolls out strict policies against the violation of COVID-19 protocols, then private entities will be able to run their business safely. Alongside this, BJP has accused the civic administration of imposing the mini lockdown in an unplanned manner.
Earlier, last week, BMC had announced that restaurants were to be totally shut, except for take away and home delivery between 7 am and 8 pm on weekdays. On weekends, only food deliveries would be allowed. However, later, on Wednesday, the civic body had tweaked the rules and stated that food delivery and e-commerce services would be allowed round the clock.
Besides this, the civic body has also added more relaxations, such as allowing the movement of cooks and housekeeping workers till 10 pm throughout the week and allowing opticians to operate in the given time. As a result, BJP didn't hold back any punches and said that the civic body does not have any concrete plan yet on how to contain the spread of COVID-19.
"The civic administration doesn't have any clear policy as to how it tends to impose the lockdown. This has confused all the small time businessmen and traders," Shinde said.
The party has also slammed the administration and alleged that, due to improper planning, the stock of vaccines in the city is on the verge of running out.
"Both the state government and civic administration had to register their demand well in advance to refill the stock. Till last month, we were being told that we have adequate stock everywhere. This is nothing but sheer mismanagement," said Shinde.
