Amid fears about the spread of coronavirus, several marriage events have been cancelled from this week, postponed in Bokaro district. The total count of India coronavirus cases have touched 114 (confirmed) with one new case each in Ladakh, Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir and Kerala, Health Ministry officials said on Monday.
Over dozens of the event were cancelled (further postponed), while many others are planning to defer their marriage dated over a fear of the spread of COVID-19 virus, said Amrendra Kumar a marriage planner and proprietor of Sai Tent.
“Our booked events of dated between 20 March and 22 April are consistently being cancelled, while we had done all the preparations and arrangements ahead of those events accordingly,” said Sunita another marriage planner.
“We are facing a lot of loss due to sudden postponements and change in marriage and other event dates,” she added.
Being a marriage planner, we had booked all the needful things including lights, flowers, tents, catering, decorations and others, which has to be cancelled due to sudden re-plan in the programme due to fear of the spread of Coronavirus.
“It is directly affecting our business and creating a huge loss to us,” said Shankar another tent house owner.
“Day-before-yesterday my seven bookings (marriage events and tents) have been cancelled,” added Shankar.
A resident of Sector 3 said, marriage of my cousin sister was planned on 21 March and baraat (wedding procession) was scheduled to rush here form Aarrah (Bihar) but yesterday suddenly we received a phone call for postponement of the event.
“The father of the boy said that baraat will not rush on 21 due to fear of the spread of Coronavirus. We will reschedule the date which will be decided May onwards,” he informed.
“Everything got stuck after they pulled the plug,” he added.
With worldwide cases now surpassing 100,000, we the planners form wedding industry, wedding photographers, travel agents, destination ceremonies and honeymoons organisers are finding very hard time, said Sahid an employee of Raj Travels.
Akash Ranjan a computer engineer who postponed his marriage, scheduled on 21 March said,” safety is the priority”.
I could not take risks for my guests being exposed to infection, said Akash adding, “I couldn’t forgive myself if our celebration became the cause of serious health issues.”
Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Bokaro Mukesh Kumar appealed to mass to avoid confusion about the coronavirus. “Spread awareness among each other about prevention from corona and be cautious,” he said.
“Caution and vigilance is the safest way to prevent coronavirus infection,” added DC.