Bengaluru: Businesses stare at bleak future

Businesses in the city are in dire straits due to the lockdown, with hospitality and garment sectors especially hit hard.

With the exodus of migrant workers, the hotel industry is bracing itself for a shortage of manpower. Restaurants hope to rely on local cooks to run their kitchens.

P C Rao, president, Bruhat Bengaluru Hotels’ Association, said there shouldn't be much difficulty for the time being as only takeaways are permitted.

"But once we resume the operations on a full scale, we will be severely hit. We will have to rope in locally available cooks and helpers to run the kitchens,” Rao told DH.

Hotels' associations approached minister Suresh Kumar and agriculture department secretary Rajendra Kataria to allow them to reopen eateries in the state.

"The government has allowed weddings with a maximum of 50 guests. We have requested that the same rule be applied to us. We have asked the minister and the secretary to allow us to open restaurants. We will see to it that not more than 50 customers are allowed in at any given point of time. We also want the property tax to be halved," Rao said.

Recovery will take a year

In the labour-intensive textile sector, garment manufacturers, wholesale dealers and lakhs of workers dread the days to come.

Praveen Bafna, president, Bangalore Apparel Manufacturers Association, said the lockdown would have many implications for 60 garment companies.

"Our business was already down by 10% following the demonetisation, GST and the slowing down of the economy. We don’t know how far we can go. It may take a year to recover as our exports are low. More than half of the companies are in a dire situation and some of them may shut down,” he said.

Pratibha R, president of the Garment and Textile Workers' Union, said close to 2.5 lakh garment workers in the city were living a hand-to-mouth existence and urgently needed employment. "Getting work is becoming important every day as workers have no savings. Companies are saying they will use the ESI funds meant during the crisis. We have called for government intervention,” she said.

Prakash Bhojani, Secretary, Karnataka Hosiery and Garment Association, said: “The stocks we had ordered for Ramzan remain unsold. We still have to estimate the losses,” he said.

Maids need work

Kamala, a maid from Vinayak Nagar, would work in four houses before the lockdown. Now, with the BBMP leaving it to the resident welfare associations to allow domestic helps into the apartments, she is working at just one independent house.

"I can’t work in other houses because employers don’t want us to come in. I could not work in March. Even though most women have gone back to their villages and I can fill in for them, families don’t want to let us in,” she said.