Hyderabad: Coronavirus scare fallout

Hyderabad: The malls in the city have turned into a deserted look after the spread of coronavirus in the city. The malls that were once found to have uncountable visitors are now having rarely 20% of people visiting the mall.

While the bigger malls have seen a straight reduction of 80% customers, the smaller malls rarely have 10% of customers visiting the mall. Taking a cue from its neighboring states, the government has ordered the closure of the theatres. However, according to the government order, the malls remained open for the convenience of the people.

Even though the malls remain open, there are rarely people having their La-La time or a family time. According to the officials of malls, movie theatres play a major part in the business of malls, and since the closure of the theatres there has been a huge downfall of the customers and the visitors. Similar is the condition in the food courts of the malls, where once it was difficult to find a place to sit and have your food. Now there are barely 10 tables found where people are seen having their food.

Speaking to THI, Ashok, Manager, Swapnalok Shopping Mall, Secunderabad said, "This shopping mall is one of the oldest malls that one can find in this city. Earlier, there were around 4,000 people visiting the mall on weekdays and 6,000 on weekends. But after the order from the government, there are barely 1,600 people coming on weekdays and around 2,000 people coming on weekends."

The workers and the retailers working at the malls were seen sitting outside their shops waiting for customers to visit their shops and counter. When The Hans India visited the City Center Mall at Banjara Hills, Road Number 1, all the workers were seen sitting at the parking or under some shade outside the malls with the headphones on.

Md Shabir, a worker at the City Center Mall who had his headphones on and having a free time watching YouTube, said, "We are asked to come to the work regularly. You can barely find any customer coming. The management can close the malls as well as there is no use even it is open. For the past weeks, we are left with no other work, apart from having our free time throughout the day."

Kajal Dey, in-charge of the City Center Mall, Banjara Hills, said, "We are asked to join our duties regularly. Earlier the timing of the malls was 11:30 am to 9:30 pm, which has now changed to 12:00 noon to 9:00 pm. There are five entrances for the mall, out of which only two are kept open as a precautionary measure. The imports and exports have currently been stopped in this mall"

The Malls have however seen providing sanitisers to whoever visiting the malls. The managements also assured that the monthly wages of the workers will be provided.

Gurunath Reddy, Incharge of the Next Galleria Mall, Punjagutta, said, "As per the government orders, we have closed the theatres in the mall and have also stopped any of the events to have happened in the mall. However, there has been no order for the closure of the retail shops and food courts. The Disaster Response Force (DRF) has been regularly inspecting the malls, whether the precautionary measures are taken or not."

Meanwhile talking about the footfalls and imports or exports, Gurunath said, "There has been a huge footfall that has been identified in this mall. However, the imports of the new arrivals are being allowed here for the retailers."