Maharashtra lockdown death knell for shopping malls: SCAI

The Shopping Centres Association of India (SCAI) has urged the Maharashtra government to take concrete steps for urgent opening of malls in the state, which have been shut in the wake of lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Maharashtra has more than 75 malls across the state, with almost 50 percent in the Mumbai metropolitan region. Similarly, Pune has more than 20 percent malls while the rest are spread across Amravati, Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Nasik, Nagpur, Aurangabad.

For latest updates and live news on coronavirus, click here

The lockdown has also put plans of more than 30 malls on hold which are presently under construction.

In its letter to Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray, SCAI has hinted that jobs of 50 lakh people, direct and indirect, in modern retail may go under the hammer if urgent action is not taken by the state government. "This is being seen as a result of freeze in revenues following the lockdown which impacted the entire retail industry. The retailers and shopping centres have now started expressing that it is becoming difficult every passing day to meet day-to-day expenses including salaries due to zero revenue and cash reserves drying up, over the last few months. The first big impact could be seen as early as August 2020," it said.

SCAI in its letter said that stocks worth hundreds of lakhs of all retailers are getting damaged and the fear is that the value will be lost if not immediately sold which will further hurt businesses.

“The industry has already seen losses exceeding Rs 100,000 crore. Maharashtra is a critical market for shopping centres and a delay in opening malls will prove to be a death knell for us”, said Amitabh Taneja, Chairman, SCAI.

Citing examples of states where malls have been allowed to open up, SCAI said that it has developed and rolled out stringent SOPs in over 500 shopping malls across the country that opened up and have successfully been able to implement social distancing guidelines along with other necessary measures in the best possible manner.

While malls have opened in most states June 8 onwards, Maharashtra is yet to take a decision on easing the lockdown. Currently, malls are operational in major metros and Tier-1 cities. The Central and State governments were seen to be taking this decision after understanding the stress the retail industry has gone through since the lockdown.

Cities which have opened malls include Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Jaipur, Ahmedabad as well as small but populous cities such as Agartala, Bhopal, Siliguri, Raiganj, Indore and more recently Cuttack to name a few.

Manoj K Agarwal, CEO, Viviana Malls said, “It is reassuring to see the confidence posed by state governments across the country in our SOPs and our ability to strictly adhere to social distancing guidelines and provide a safe shopping experience. We have urged the Maharashtra Government to give us the opportunity to at least start operating in a controlled manner and help in the industry’s survival.”

Malls that have opened have been capping the number of visitors along the lines of SCAI and Health Ministry guidelines. According to SCAI, consumer sentiment towards shopping in malls has been very positive owing to the controlled atmosphere in which they are being operated.

Rajendra Kalkar, president, West and whole-time Director of The Phoenix Mills Ltd, which operates Palladium and High Street Phoenix in Lower Parel, said, “We are actually seeing the more serious shoppers walking into our malls in Lucknow, Bareilly and Bangalore. This is unlike the times when malls were seen as a hangout destination. Conversion rate has more than doubled, which is a good sign. The lockdown had led to pent up demand, which we now see being eased out with categories like electronics, cosmetics, personal apparel seeing sizeable sales.”

Mukesh Kumar, CEO, Infiniti Malls said, “We have undertaken several measures to maintain safety and hygiene like the implementation of technology to supplement and in some cases to replace manual interventions for example installation and use of Thermal Devices to check the temperature of visitors, automated dispensers for hand sanitisers, use of density counting equipment to keep a real-time check on the number of people in the mall, and frequent sanitisation of handrails of escalators”.