Since Maharashtra has been one of the major states of India hit by the coronavirus pandemic, shopping malls started shutting down from mid-March to control the spread of the deadly virus.
But now, after almost 5 months, mall owners are geared up to restart their businesses from tomorrow (5 August).
All the key shopping malls in the financial capital of the country, including Infiniti, Inorbit, Phoenix and Oberoi, are prepared to reopen to the public – of course, with a strict focus on hygiene and safety measures like sanitisation and social distancing.
It must be underlined here that except for malls in Thane, most malls in other areas have already begun cleaning and disinfection procedures before reopening.
Restaurants, foodcourts and theatres within the malls have not been allowed yet to operate. Also, the operational hours for malls have been set from 9 am to 7 pm.
Mall owners are expecting the business to stabilise in nearly 8 weeks post reopening, and are expecting sales to gather momentum around the festive season that begins with Dussehra, which is set to fall on 25 October, followed by Diwali slated to occur on 14 November.
Maharashtra is home to over 75 malls, about 50 per cent of which are spread across Mumbai MMR, Thane, Kalyan, Navi Mumbai, Dombivli, etc.
20 per cent of malls in the state are located in Pune, and the rest are spread across Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Amravati, Nasik, Nagpur, etc.
