COVID-19: ‘Online’ business allowed in Karachi under strict safety guidelines

Islamabad: The government of Sindh on Monday allowed traders, retailers and wholesale dealers to resume business operations in Karachi and other cities, with this condition that they should purely be restricted to online activities only, in accordance with COVID-19 safety guidelines.

Earlier, the government of Sindh had disallowed all kinds of business activities on the pretext that those could lead to further spread of the coronavirus infection that has already affected around 5,000 people in Karachi and the rest of the province. However, following strong protests and threats of severe consequences by traders’ associations and business groups, the provincial government had to allow ‘limited’ business activities in the metropolitan with effect from Monday.

However, the various traders’ bodies and the government are yet to come to an agreement on whether the permission should be restricted to only online activities or whether it should be applicable to all kinds of businesses.

Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani had claimed a day earlier that only online business would be allowed. Only those traders who have access to online business would be allowed to resume their activities, the minister insisted.

The government, he said, had also allowed home deliveries to resume, but customers were not allowed to physically visit the shops. They could only order and shop online and receive the ordered items at home.

According to the standard operating procedure (SOP), traders, shopkeepers and delivery persons would also have to comply with the safety measures while delivering items to customers, the minister explained. The front shutter-gates of shops will have to be kept closed and only one shopkeeper or dealer or salesman is allowed to stay inside to receive online orders, the safety regulations said.

By last Sunday, the Sindh government had received 5,000 affidavits from different shopkeepers and businessmen for online business. According to undertakings tendered by the traders and businessmen, the shops will maintain daily medical records of all employees and in case of symptoms of coronavirus noticed in any employee, the employer will be responsible for his/her treatment. “In case of any violation, the government could close the shop, office or the business concern.

Meanwhile, the representatives of traders’ bodies had assembled at the local Electronic Market in Saddar, but were not allowed to open their shops.

They dismissed the SOP issued by the provincial government, calling it a “lollypop”. Allowing only online business is an eyewash and the provincial government is set to destroy traditional businesses as the lockdown enters its 40th day in the city, the traders’ representative complained.

Chairman of the traders’ representatives, Tajir Ittehad Atiq Mir, claimed “[Allowing] online business is a technical refusal by the government of Sindh to our demands of opening businesses. The new SOP will only favour 5 per cent of the community and the rest will continue to bear the losses”, Mir said.

Filling in the government-prescribed forms for online business is in itself an arduous task and not every trader can do that, he further said.

President of the Small Traders of Karachi, Mehmood Hamid, general secretary Usman Sharif, members Liaqat Ali, Javed Shamas and others also demanded that the government of Sindh allow all businesses to operate in the city and said they were ready to issue and undertaking that all safety parameters and SOP would be followed.