Rajesh Gupta from North Delhi Weekly Market Association said, “After coming to know of the decision, we called a joint meeting on Wednesday evening to decide the future course of action. We plan to open the weekly market at Kingsway Camp soon.” The association has decided to give masks and hand sanitisers to its members for their use as well as distribution to customers.
Weekly markets have remained closed for the past five months after Delhi government issued an order to that effect in March. The association said at least 2.5 lakh vendors were left with no work and no source of income after the decision.
Rajkumar Kataria, a member of South Delhi Weekly Bazaar Union, said, “Weekly markets were shut on March 16. Since then, no activity has been allowed anywhere. After other markets were granted permission to open, we wrote to LG Anil Baijal and Delhi government requesting them to make arrangements for us too. We thank them for understanding our pain.”
“Police told us that the markets will be allowed to open once the government order comes. We are buying sanitiser machines and planning to deploy guards to ensure social distancing among customers,” said Kataria. The vendors had earlier suggested to the government to restrict entry to the markets and shrink the size of each shop so that the distance between two units increased automatically.