Amid Omicron threat, CAIT urges govt to not impose lockdown

In the wake of a surge in COVID-19 cases and the detection of the new, highly contagious virus variant, Omicron, in India, domestic traders body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has urged the central government to not impose any lockdown and rather "carve out ways and means to encourage and motivate people to adopt COVID safety protocols mandatorily."

The CAIT secretary general Praveen Khandelwal wrote that as far as the commercial markets are concerned, any move to impose lockdown of shops would be a regressive step. "It’s better to take trade associations in confidence and with the support of government machinery, the trade associations may be assigned to cooperate and devise measures to check inflow of the customer in a systematic manner while adopting covid protocols," he said in a statement.

The shopkeepers have already been advised by the CAIT to adopt a “No Mask- No Sale" policy while dealing with customers. As per the advice of CAIT, shopkeepers are using mandatory mask by themselves and their employees, it said.

Terming odd-even system futile for commercial markets, Khandelwal wrote that this method imposed by state governments will restrict the choice and purchase of consumers and will have negative impact on consumer sentiments.

"Since the shops are the only immediate contact point of the people and through them a wide awareness drive can be launched. CAIT assures the government for its support in such a critical time," the statement added.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) ordered that the ongoing national directives for COVID-19 management will continue to be strictly followed throughout the country till 31st January 2022. The move comes in order to mitigate the fast-spreading virus variant Omicron in several states and Union Territories (UTs).

MHA issued orders to all Chief Secretaries in the states and UTs stressing "the need for greater foresight, data analysis, dynamic decision making, and strict and prompt containment actions at the local and district levels," in view of current COVID situation.

The health ministry also informed that so far, India has 578 Omicron cases reported in 19 States/UTs, out of which 151 patients have been discharged.

On Monday, the country reporter 6,531 COVID cases and 315 deaths in the last 24 hours.