Chandigarh Congress on Friday launched an online petition urging the UT Administration to provide economic relief to the residents to ease the financial burden suffered by various segments amid coronavirus pandemic.
The city Congress president Pradeep Chhabra said that in the petition, we have given various recommendations to the UT Administration which shall be highly effective in combating the economic crisis being faced by residents.
The online petition was signed by around 200 people by Friday night.
Chhabra said that the main agendas in the online petition are related to waiving off school fees, waiving off the electricity charges, water bills of the business enterprises for lockdown period, burden of monthly rent of property should be shared equally by the tenant and the owner of that particular property, paying guests should not be forced to pay the rent for lockdown period.
The online petition reads, “no school fees should be charged upon the students for the lockdown period of two months i.e. April and May. The State Governments of Punjab and Rajasthan have ordered the complete fee waiver during the lockdown period, and the Congress demands that similar decision should be adopted in Chandigarh too, in order to relieve a considerable proportion of economic burden on parents in this phase of hardship.”
If still, it is not possible for any school to pay the salaries to its staff, they may be allowed to collect half of the monthly school fees from the students, excluding the students from economically weaker families, the petition stated.
The Administration should waive off the electricity charges, water bills of the business enterprises for this time period of the lockdown, it further added.
Thirdly, the tenants (residential or commercial), who have to pay monthly rent for their shops or business premises or residential accommodation, are also facing excessive losses because of the lockdown. And, on humanitarian grounds, the burden should be shared equally by the tenant and the owner of that particular property, the Congress stated in the petition.
In addition to the tenants, the burden on the paying guests should not be ignored. The PGs who had not been staying in their PG accommodation should not be forced to pay the rent for that period of lockdown, because most of the paying guests are students and are financially dependent on their parents, the petition added.
Notably, the UT Administration had revoked 41-day curfew imposed to contain Coronavirus on May 4 and placed the city under lockdown, allowing a series of relaxations from 7 am to 7 pm.