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The Delhi government’s 12-member committee, which is tasked with the responsibility to suggest ways to boost businesses hit by the coronavirus pandemic, on Wednesday decided to adopt the ‘Survive, Revive, Thrive’ approach to chart out the roadmap for economic recovery.
The committee held its first meeting under the chairmanship of Jasmine Shah, Vice-Chairperson of Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi. It was formed last week based on recommendations of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.
“At a time when many Indian cities are still oscillating between locking down and unlocking, Delhi’s firm focus on economic revival shows the tremendous progress we have made so far. By working together with industry stakeholders, Delhi government is keen to come out stronger from the economic shock,” said Shah.
Identifying and consolidating on sunrise sectors such as tourism, hospitality, entertainment, and knowledge-based industries and providing a thriving atmosphere for start-ups were some of the measures discussed at the meeting.
Based on the deliberations and inputs from various members of the committee, it was decided that the committee will adopt the ‘Survive, Revive, Thrive’ approach.
In the immediate short term i.e. next 3-6 months, the focus will be on ensuring the survival of businesses and various industry sectors by revisiting licensing norms, simplifying COVID-related regulations and taking measures to revive demand, the committee said in a statement.
In this context, Gyanesh Bharti, Commissioner of South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) highlighted that it has already initiated the process for an automatic extension of all existing licences issued by local bodies up to March 31, 2021, without interest or penalty.
Commissioner (Industries) also shared the progress made by the industries department in providing moratorium on lease rent on land issued by DSIIDC as well as a major reduction in the interest rate on penalties.
Several industry members expressed the urgency of undertaking measures to revive demand by taking industry-specific measures, e.g. by permitting outdoor seating and extending hours of operations in restaurants.
It also suggested undertaking a joint effort among stakeholders at the individual market level by setting up control rooms to monitor social distancing and sanitisation protocols to instil confidence in consumers regarding the safety of shopping in markets.
Issues regarding the difficulty in accessing credit by new firms, who so far have not accessed credit from banks, were also highlighted.
In the medium term i.e. three years, the committee agreed to focus revival of the business environment by accelerating the pending reforms related to ease of doing business in Delhi.
Delhi Tally
With 2,033 new coronavirus cases and 48 deaths in the last 24 hours, the national capital on Wednesday recorded a total tally of 1,04,864 and 3,213 deaths.
Till now, 78,199 people have recovered, more than three times the number of active cases which stand at 23,452. Over 3,213 deaths mean that the city has a case fatality rate of three per cent.
Earlier this week, the capital had crossed the grim milestone of one lakh cases. The silver lining, however, is the recovery rate, which has exceeded 70 per cent. According to the Delhi government’s daily bulletin, as many as 3,982 patients recovered in the last 24 hours.
On June 23, the city had witnessed the highest single-day peak of 3,947 cases, but the number has come down steadily since then despite the number of tests increasing.
Testing numbers in the city have gone up since the commencement of rapid antigen tests last month. Over 9,461 RT-PCR and 12,567 rapid antigen Covid-19 tests were conducted Wednesday.
In total, 7,01,859 tests have been conducted so far in the national capital. Delhi has a total of 458 containment zones.
Currently, 4,859 beds are occupied in the hospitals out of a total capacity of 15,096 beds, 1,758 in the dedicated COVID Care Centres out of 7,869 and 141 beds in the dedicated COVID Health Centres as against the availability of 544 total beds. Over 14,661 people are under home isolation.
Earlier, an order was issued to all COVID hospitals in Delhi regarding obtaining feedback of patients and their willingness to donate plasma at the time of discharge from hospital.
Another order was issued to display a flex board of 12×10 feet at the entry gate of all hospitals in Delhi having information related to plasma donation and to encourage persons who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate their plasma to help other COVID positive patients.
