Staff Reporter
Karachi
While appreciating numerous measures adopted by Sindh Government since the imposition of lockdown from March 23 to prevent spread of coronavirus pandemic particularly the hard work by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah who has been personally monitoring all the virus-related activities and developments, devising relief strategies, frequently holding follow-up meetings and consultations with all the stakeholders, Chairman Businessmen Group (BMG) & Former President Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) Siraj Kassam Teli said, “Coronavirus is not going to go anywhere and it is going to stay with us for the time being. It has become part of our lives and we will have to live with it. We cannot afford to keep the businesses closed forever so the government will have to devise ways and means of how to safely get back to daily routine life in the presence of the virus.”
Chairman BMG demanded that it was high time to give the much-awaited relief to perturbed small traders/ shopkeepers by announcing ease in the ongoing lockdown from fifteenth of Ramadan onwards so that members of the business & industrial community, particularly small traders/ shopkeepers could recover some of their losses during the last two weeks of Ramadan when the business activities in all commercial markets become bullish ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr.
He said that despite facing severe hardships during the prolonged lockdown, the entire business & industrial community especially small traders/ shopkeepers suffered heavy losses yet they fully cooperated and supported all the decisions taken by the government. Hence, they must now be given some relief in the shape of easing the lockdown under a pre-defined formula in which all the small traders/ shopkeepers be granted the permission to reopen their businesses with an only condition to strictly adhere to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) which must be mutually agreed and devised in such a manner that all these SOPs are doable and ensure minimum risk.
“These SOPs must have physical distancing requirements of two meters between people at all times. SOPs must also mandate limits on operating hours as well as limits on staff and customer capacity while visitor volume in each shop has to be reduced to 40 percent of the shop’s capacity. Avoiding handshake and wearing masks must also be made mandatory all the time for visitors and staff while the shopkeepers have to be directed to ensure proper disinfection of their shops after intervals and sanitization of incoming customers along with facility to check temperature at the entrance”, said Siraj Teli, adding that all these SOPs are not just for the shopping season of Ramadan only but these must become part of our daily lives and routine business activities as the coronavirus is going to stay for some time.
