Karachi’s wedding, banquet and lawn owners have rejected the new COVID-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) rolled out by the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) after a sharp surge in cases.
The Karachi Marriage Hall, Lawn, Banquet Owners Association held a press conference at the press club on Saturday to denounce the government’s decision to ban indoor weddings.
The association said thousands of employees and other businesses linked with weddings will be affected due to more restrictions and bans.
The president of the association said that wedding hall owners and their thousands of employees had already faced severe financial problems when all the halls were closed between March 13 and September 15 during the lockdown period.
The association members said that when halls reopened after September 15, they did not get business as most people prefer not to get married during Muharram and Safar, which took place after the halls were reopened.
The association said that there are around 800 wedding halls only in Karachi and that the living of 50,000 people and their families are linked to these halls.
“Around 70 to 80% of our employees work on daily wages,” he said, adding that the earning of such employees depended on daily wedding events.
The association pointed out that there are roughly 13,000 wedding halls in the entire country, with which 650,000 labourers’ livelihoods are directly linked. Fifty percent of the city’s industries, the association highlighted, were directly and the rest of the 50% were indirectly linked to wedding halls.
“With the closure of the wedding halls due the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of labourers will be directly or indirectly affected,” said the association’s president.
The government had itself failed to limit the number of people attending its political gatherings and implement the SOPs, stated the association.
“We want to bring this into your knowledge that wedding halls is the only industry which didn’t get any relief from the government since the lockdown of March 13,” said Raees.
He requested Prime Minister Imran Khan, the chief justice of Pakistan and army chief to look into the miseries of the wedding hall owners and their employees.
“We demand SOPs be drafted for wedding ceremonies after taking us on board,” he said.
