Wedding industry cites losses, urges Kejriwal to ease Covid protocol

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The city's wedding industry has urged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to ease covid protocols imposed on wedding-gatherings in view of rising COVID cases.

Amid the peak season of weddings, the industry body called for a meeting with the government suggesting measures it could follow during gatherings.

The industry body wrote the government a letter saying 99 per cent weddings are getting postponed or cancelled due to capping of guests to 20 people.

Citing other industries which are allowed to function with 50 per cent capacity, such as hotels, it said no such provisions have been made for the wedding industry.

The abrupt shutdown without any fall back plan in place for them have made the industry suffer major losses, it said.

In its letter, the body suggested a few measures it could follow as COVID protocol.

It said all guests at the time of entry could be made to submit double vaccine certificate and go through temperature check before entering the venue.

It said entry will not be permitted without mask.

For those part of the wedding team, the industry said it will be subjected to same rules and a few more.

It recommended submitting an RTPCR test report (48 hours) by the organisers of their entire team to the respective District Collector office.

It also recommended sanitising of the venue twice a day.

The wedding industry in its letter urged the Delhi Government to allow them to host events with space of four square feet/person or with capacity of 200 people.

Delhi reported three Covid fatalities on Tuesday, its most in one day after over four months, while logging 5,481 fresh cases, the highest since May 16.

The city government has announced weekend curfew to curb the contagion driven by the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

According to official data, as on Tuesday, the case positivity rate moved up to 8.37 per cent -- the highest since May 17 when it was 8.42 per cent.

With the cases mounting, deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia announced a return of the weekend curfew as the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) decided to reimpose some more restrictions.