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Lockdown guidelines unfair, feel Mizoram shopping mall traders

By Correspondent

AIZAWL, May 25 - Just because you own a shop at a glamorous shopping mall doesn�t mean you�re rich enough and can survive without any earnings for months.

Many shop owners at Millennium Centre, Aizawl�s biggest shopping mall, are now staring at a bleak future after the Mizoram government revised lockdown guidelines on Saturday, revoking its earlier decision to let shopping malls open.

�After closing our shops for nearly two months, the guidelines for Lockdown 4.0 allowed us to open, which we joyfully welcomed. But just as we began to start earning, the Government revised the guidelines and ordered us to close our shops again,� fumed a disgruntled shop owner at Millennium Centre.

For reasons not understood, the revised guidelines prohibited opening of shopping malls in Mizoram. However, the guidelines for the rest of the shops, i.e., those dealing in garments, groceries, hardware goods, cosmetic shops, etc., have remained the same. These shops can open on alternate days, which means that shops next to each other cannot open on the same day.

Shops owners at Millennium Centre and other smaller malls argued as to why the same rules cannot be applied on shopping malls.

�The authorities might have feared that shopping malls, if open, will be overcrowded with shoppers. This is not the case. Even in normal times, our shopping malls are not as crowded as those in big cities. We don�t see why we cannot maintain physical distancing while other shops can. After all, do these shops that are allowed to open actually maintain physical distancing is also a big question,� said another shop owner.

Many shop owners at Millennium Centre started their business after availing bank loans. Today they are struggling to repay the loan amount and at the same time feed their families, they said.

�The general people, and even the authorities, might think that we were earning big and have savings big enough to last us for many months even without opening our shops. But it is not so. If we continue like this, many of us will face extreme financial hardship,� the shop owner said.

If the authorities are really concerned about physical distancing and fear that this cannot be maintained in shopping malls, then why let city buses ply on the roads and carry full load of passengers, was another question raised by the shop owners at Millennium Centre.

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