Maharashtra malls close down voluntarily over government’s COVID-19 vaccination rules

Mukesh Kumar, CEO of Mumbai’s Infiniti Mall and Chairman SCAI, said that over 80 percent of the workforce in malls falls in the age group of 18-44 years. Though vaccination for this age group started in Maharashtra in May, it was suspended 12 days later due to shortage of vaccines doses. The inoculation resumed only in June, and in the meantime, the interval between two doses of Covishield (which was the vaccine being administered to this age group) was increased to 84 days, he said.

Accordingly, malls and retail industry bodies began vaccinating staff only in June, and so most of the employees will not be eligible for a second dose until the end of August.

Currently, only 5-10 percent of staff in malls are fully vaccinated, while over 90 percent have been vaccinated with the first dose.

However, BMC commissioner Iqbal Chahal told CNBC-TV18 last week that employees who have gotten just one COVID-19 dose will be allowed in Mumbai malls, which opened on August 15.

“Based on the BMC commissioner’s interaction with the media, we opened hoping a government order will follow a similar nature of relaxation. But that hasn’t happened and we cannot operate under current rules. Some malls may be able to attract employees with double vaccination, but most are finding it difficult to have sufficient manpower and be compliant,” Rajneesh Mahajan, CEO of Inorbit Malls told CNBC-TV18.

However, with the state government on August 16 reiterating the need for two doses and a gap of 14 days after the second dose, several malls including Inorbit, Phoenix Palladium, Infinity, Growel’s 1O1 malls have decided to close down.

“Most mall staff is therefore partially vaccinated (one dose) having taken their first dose in the last 30-45 days. In this situation, as a sizeable number of their staff and employees is not eligible to get their second dose, malls will not be able to operate before September-end,” said Sachin Dhanawade, COO, Retail and Real Estate, Grauer & Weil (India) Limited, which operates Growel’s 1O1 Mall.

The SCAI said in a statement that it made several representations since the state government order on August 9, requesting relaxations on the mandate to have double vaccination for the mall and retail staff, making the above points.

Growel’s Dhanawade added, “Malls in Mumbai are collaboratively seeking a meeting with the concerned government authorities to get a resolution over this situation and help us safeguard livelihoods that depend on malls ecosystem.”

Urging Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to reconsider the applicability of the vaccination rules for malls, SCAI said shopping malls in the state have been shut for more than 270/345 days since the pandemic struck, resulting in huge, irrecoverable losses for the industry. It has also resulted in a lot of mall owners who have huge debts due to financing are facing greater difficulty in servicing these obligations.

"We do believe that the State Government's Break the Chain Revised Notification dated the 16th of August may need to be modified to ensure a balance between saving livelihoods and lives,” Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India (RAI) added.

Even in the two days that malls opened, the double vaccination rule for customers resulted in barely 10 percent footfalls against pre-pandemic levels. This is in contrast with the huge crowd malls in Delhi witnessed when they opened up in June.

“We also saw serious shoppers coming in, and conversions were pretty high at 3X our average sales, but the number of shoppers is so small that business not meaningful,” Inorbit’s Mahajan said.

Infinity’s Kumar added that while they see footfalls of about 50,000 every year on August 15, this year, only 7,000 came, of which at least 1,000 had to be turned away as they weren’t fully vaccinated.

Malls across Mumbai reported similar confusion, as they had to turn away scores of customers. Mall owners now say that unless the government allows operations of malls with employees and customers with a single dose, the industry will continue to suffer.