With the Centre permitting shopping malls to open from June 8, many realty firms are starting operations from Monday itself, while others have scheduled for later this week following all safety and hygiene norms set by the state governments.
India’s largest realty firm DLF will open its five shopping malls in Delhi and Noida later this week and is taking all necessary steps to ensure full safety of visitors, Pushpa Bector, Executive Director, DLF Shopping Malls, said.
Xander-backed Virtuous Retail is opening four malls in Bengaluru, Surat, Mohali and Amritsar from tomorrow.
Chennai and Nagpur are not allowed to open as Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have not allowed malls to open, said Pankaj Renjhen, COO, Virtuous Retail.
Pacific group ED Abhishek Bansal said: “In Delhi, we are likely to open our mall in Dwaraka on June 9 and Tagore Garden on June 13. In Ghaziabad, the district magistrate has directed to wait till June 11”.
“We have a mall in Dehradun but there is no direction from the local administration yet”.
Gaurs group MD Manoj Gaur said the company is opening its mall in Noida Extension on Monday.
Unity group’s director Harsh Bansal will open its shopping malls at Janakpuri and Shahdara in the national capital on Monday, while those in Rohini and Dwarka will start operation from Wednesday.
To ensure the safety of people visiting shopping malls, all mall owners said that they are following all the necessary standard operating procedures (SOPs) issued by the Union Health Ministry and state governments.
Before starting the malls, they are sanitising their properties and physical stocks.
Mall owners said they will ensure social distancing in their malls, including in lifts and escalators.
Temperature checks at our malls entrances, and use of Aarogya Setu App will be made mandatory for consumers to enter malls.
“We are setting up all the necessary protocols to maintain the 6 feet social distancing norms. Our F&B brands will reduce seating arrangements to 50 per cent and will strictly follow the social distancing guidelines. They will be accepting pre-orders, takeaways and digital mode of payments,” Bector of DLF said.
On request for rental waivers, mall owners said they are working with retailers and solutions will emerge amicably.