Srinagar, Jan 28: Chairman, PHDCCI Kashmir region, Baldev Singh Raina in a press statement today has expressed his dismay over the weekend lockdowns in J&K.
“Imposing weekly restrictions from Friday afternoon is not the way out. It is time the UT government and the disaster management authorities re-examine their guidelines and take measures that don’t impede economic and trade activities. The hoteliers, trading and bussiness community are taking SOPs seriously, because we all know that if anything goes wrong, there is no comeback”, Mr Baldev said in the statement received by Ziraat Times.
“Being a tourist region, we need to be very cautious to impose a night curfew or extended weekly lockdowns. Tourism is extremely important for the Kashmir economy. Employment and livelihood of major population in the Kashmir valley are directly and indirectly dependent on tourism sector”, he added.
He termed the closure of shops and Bussiness weekly after Friday prayer’s as ‘partial lockdown’, ‘which would deal a severe blow to the businesses, which is already in doldrums for the past three to four years.’
“In our opinion the pandemic is an ongoing process and rise in COVID cases is a possibility and therefore we need to co-exist with it and imposing weekly restrictions from Friday is not the way out. To respond to the situation, we need to restrict the weekly lockdown from Saturday evening till Sunday only and also there is no need for night curfews in Kashmir region, these curfews might work— to little extent—in cities that have a nightlife busier than day time”, he opined.
Observing that ‘there is no value in putting uniform UT-wide restrictions as majority of cases are asymptomatic and mild’, he said the containment approach has to be different.
“The local context in terms of positivity, hospitalisation and accomplishment of 100 per cent dose of vaccination is a mark that needs to be looked at. Restrictions on economic activities needs to be kept minimal and graded, to make life moving and livelihood unaffected. So weekly infection population ratio (WIPR) needs to be made the yardstick for restriction”, added Mr Baldev.
