Jammu: Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, an apex body of traders and industrialists, here on Monday appealed the Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to announce a “special relief package for the survival and revival’’ of business community who has suffered a lot during the pandemic in the Union Territory.
At an urgent meeting of office bearers held at the chamber house here, CCI president Arun Gupta appreciated the persuasive efforts being taken by the UT Administration to mitigate the surge of Covid-19 cases as the result of which the UT is witnessing a downfall trend in Coronavirus infection for the last two week.
However, he also expressed displeasure over the recently announced SOPs by the disaster management department, saying “our traders have suffered a lot and faced huge losses during last year lockdown and they are passing through the same phase this year due to the continuous lockdown since the previous month’’.
Referring to the continuous decline in number of Corona related deaths and positive cases for the last two weeks, the Chamber president said that it is high time to unlock the markets, bazars, malls at least five days a week so that it will give some relief to the traders, who are facing the hardships from more than a month.
“We are not against the opening and closing of bazars timings announced by the administration, but at the same time we must save our business community simply from dying from the economic crunch,’’ he added.
Chamber being an apex body of traders and industrialists has always stood and cooperated with the government whenever the need arose primarily in the time of crises, he said, adding that they expect the same response from the government too in helping the traders and industrialist.
Those who were present in the meeting include Anil Gupta (Sr. Vice-President), Rajeev Gupta (Jr. Vice-President), Gaurav Gupta (Secretary General), Rajesh Gupta (Secretary) and Rajesh Gupta (Treasurer).