The Jharkhand Government will take a call on reopening of schools, colleges, coaching centres, cinema halls, parks and other recreation centres on February 19. Educational institutions and recreation centres such as parks, cinema halls have been closed since March last year due to corona pandemic and the lockdown necessitated to check the spread of the pandemic. Earlier, the meeting of disaster management was fixed on February 5, where the decision on reopening educational institutions, cinema halls and other recreation centres was to be taken but at the last hour the meeting was postponed.
The meeting of disaster management authority was to be attended by Chief Minister Hemant Soren, State Health Minister Banna Gupta, senior officers of the State government, representatives from schools, cinemas halls and others.
Gupta said, “The government will take a decision on reopening educational institutions and recreation centres on February 19. Earlier, the meeting was scheduled on February 5, but it was postponed due to some technical reasons.”
Even, malls and cinema halls operators are hopeful that the government will take a decision on reopening of recreation centres as cinema halls and multiplex are suffering huge loss due to closure of malls and multiplex.
As Cinema halls that have remained shut since the COVID-19-induced lockdown for the past 11 months, the Multiplex Association of Jharkhand on several occasions have urged the State Government to reopen cinema halls in the State. Now, the Multiplex Association and single screen operators are once again hopeful of a positive response from the State Government on reopening of movie theatres as the government will take a final decision on February 19.
Carnival Cinema general manager Dhruva Kushwaha said, “We have come to know that disaster management meeting is scheduled on February 19, we are hopeful that the government will take a final decision on that day.”
Sources said that corona pandemic and subsequent lockdown has affected the multiplex and single screen most. The corona pandemic and lockdown has led to salary cut and jobless as most of the outsourced employees working at multiplex and single screen have lost jobs. Moreover, staff and employees working on roll at multiplex and single screen have salary cut.
Meanwhile, manager of another city based multiplex said, “Why the government is not taking any decision on reopening multiplexes when other states have reopened multiplex and single screen cinema with 100 per cent occupancy. The government should understand that malls, multiplex and cinema halls are sources of revenue and the government by not giving permission is cutting its own revenue generation hands.”
The manager claimed that in multiplex and single screen halls, the state government gets 18 per cent revenue directly on single ticket, while revenue generation from other sources is additional.