Bhupinder Basant thanks Punjab CM and DC Ludhiana for acceding to his demands 

Ludhiana: 
Punjab Traders Board (Excise and Taxation) senior vice chairman Bhupinder Basant has thanked both the Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Ludhiana deputy commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma for acceding to his demands with regard to giving more relaxations to the traders’ community. 

In a statement issued here today, Basant said according to a fresh order passed by District Magistrate Ludhiana, all shops have now been permitted to open from 5 am to 5 pm from Monday to Friday and home delivery of eatables has been allowed on all 7 days of week till 9 pm (including weekend curfew).

He said he had taken up these demands with both Punjab CM and Ludhiana deputy commissioner and written separate letters to them. 

In his letter to Punjab CM, he had written, mentioning that, the Hotel and Restaurant Industry of Punjab be permitted for home delivery of cooked food on weekends in view of decline in active Covid-19 cases. He had also stated that this relaxation, if given, would give a sigh of relief to the industry. He had also written to the chief minister that “most of the raw material used in this industry is of perishable nature, which gets destroyed if not used continuously for two days. That is why this industry is demanding permission for home delivery of cooked food on weekends too at par with the other days.”

He said he was thankful to Punjab CM that now home delivery of eatables has been allowed on all 7 days of week till 9 pm (including weekend curfew) in Ludhiana district. He hoped that this relaxation would also be given in all other districts of Punjab too in the near future, in the larger interests of the hotel and restaurants industry, which has suffered heavily due to the pandemic situation over the period.

Basant said he had also written a letter to the Ludhiana deputy commissioner and this letter reads as under: “In your recent Weekly Facebook Live Session on the official page of DPRO Ludhiana, you have mentioned that Ludhiana has been witnessing some respite from past two weeks after the extraordinary scale of the second Covid wave hit the district in March-April. Your statement has really spread positive sentiments among the traders’ community. Now, when the situation is getting improved day-by-day, I, therefore, suggest you to please consider a demand of the shopkeepers and further extend timings of the shops till evening. This will provide a great relief not only to the shopkeepers but also to the general public to go to the markets for shopping in the evening instead of scorching heat.”