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Yet Another Test of Resilience Begins
After witnessing a historic turnaround in the last five months in terms of business and revenue, it is disheartening to see the shopping centre industry back to similar circumstances in a matter of a few weeks. February and March saw almost every mall reaching a business level of 80 percent and was looking towards the recovery after facing losses worth of crores in 2020. The pandemic fear is back as there is a huge increase in the number of active cases and the shopping malls and non essential retail outlets are shut once again.
The State Governments have imposed 15 days lockdown and weekend curfews in most of the Tier I cities, with Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru feeling the maximum heat. In this adverse situation, when things are totally out of hand, various retail organisations along with SCAI and RAI and mall developers are looking forward towards the Government for support, to keep the infrastructure of the business running.
Shopping centres are the premium model of organised retail and in these eight months, the industry has been the only sector that has followed all the COVID regulations and guidelines in a most planned manner. The malls have invested huge amounts of capital in adopting all the necessary measures and they continue to adapt new models to keep the hygiene and safety tempo high. However, despite this, shopping malls are the ones who always have to be the first thing to be shut down, in order to contain the spread of the virus. This approach should change.
The cover story of April 2021, brings to our astute readers, the ground reality from the mall developers prospects, discussing the key aspects of the 2021 lockdown. Are the malls prepared for the lockdown, how will they deal with the rental and other mandatory charges challenges, what impact will it have on the upcoming malls and with what approach mall developers will take things forward in coming months.
As always, we hope you find the issue informative and useful. Log on to our website https://www.indiaretailing.com/category/shoppingcentre/ for more features, analysis and expert opinions.
