The Chamber of Trade and Industry (CTI) on Friday urged the Delhi government to allow marriage functions to be held in hotels and banquets during the next phase of unlock process, saying the business related to matrimonial programmes was suffering huge losses.
In a letter to the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), the trade body demanded that at least 50 or more people in Delhi should be allowed for wedding functions in hotels, banquets and public places.
“At present, there is a ban on marriage ceremonies in public places in Delhi. The DDMA has allowed marriages only at home or in court.
“Due to this, the business related to matrimonial programs is in great loss,” the CTI said.
Delhi residents were getting married in Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Sonipat as neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have allowed wedding programmes with 50 guests, a statement quoting CTI chairman Brijesh Goyal and president Subhash Khandelwal said.
“Due to this, the employment of about five lakh businessmen related to banquet, hotel, textile, sweets, jewellery, tent, catering, photograph, make-up etc has come to a standstill,” the statement said.
It added that a lot of people who deal with wedding-related businesses had taken advance bookings from the clients, which they have had to return.
According to Goyal, marriages under Hindu customs would not be able to take place for four months after ‘devshayani ekadashi’ (July).
“Now that there are few wedding ‘muhurtas’ left, so the CTI has written the letter to DDMA demanding that at least 50 or more people in Delhi should be allowed for wedding functions in hotels, banquets and public places,” the statement said.
The CTI also met Delhi Banquet and Hoteliers officials, who too have requested that in the next phase of the unlock process, at least 50 or more people should be allowed to participate in the marriage programmes, the statement said.
With the number of COVID-19 cases decreasing over the last few weeks, Delhi has been seeing a phased unlock process, under which factories, markets and salons among other services have been allowed to resume operations gradually.
