The Uttrakhand Government has now allowed shopkeepers to open their stores till 8 PM from Monday besides opening their shops on the weekends in Dehradun. Till now, Dehradun city was being closed down on the weekend to enable sanitisation of the city. While the shopkeepers are optimistic that the business on weekends will bring more customers, locals also seemed happy about this decision.
According to a local clothing store owner Amit Aggarwal, people like to do shopping during late evenings in summer but due to earlier time restriction till 7 pm, many locals had stopped visiting market after 6 pm.
Aggarwal added that people can now visit the market on evenings as well as on weekends.
However, many businessmen and store owners said that extended time also means extra precautions and more risk of Cov0id-19 contagion, therefore everyone including customers needs to be more careful in public areas.
While some locals seemed concerned about the risk of Covid-19 contagion spreading through market places, others said that shopping on weekends can make their life easy while following proper guidelines and precautions in crowded places.
“Locals are mostly visiting the market for genuine purchases and since weekends are generally free for most of the working people, everyone can plan their purchases on weekends. We all know that coronavirus disease is not going away anytime soon so why not lead a normal life while following safety measures,” said a Karnpur resident Rajesh Payal. Another resident from Sahastradhara Road, Richa Rawat said that the condition in the State is not quite better and there is still the risk of community spread of Covid-19 disease.
“Even if the government has lifted the weekend lockdown here, people should look out for themselves and their families before visiting any public place unnecessarily,” added Rawat.
Talking about the lifting of the weekend lockdown in Dehradun, the city president of Udyog Vyapar Mandal, Pankaj Masson said that they have welcomed all the government’s decision till now and this decision also appears to be in the interests of shopkeepers who have been suffering from losses for months.
However, he opined that the government should keep at least one day off every week to completely sanitise the market and public places to minimise the risk of Covid-19 contagion among shopkeepers and customers considering the present situation in city.