New Delhi, April 13: The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the apex body of traders, has fully supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to continue the lockdown, implemented in the country as logical and necessary step in wake of outbreak of Covid-19.
Significantly, the Prime Minister addressed the nation on Tuesday at 10 am in which he stressed on the need of extending the lockdown till May 3.
CAIT has assured the Prime Minister that under any circumstances, the business community of the country will not let any kind of shortage in the supply of essential goods in every part of the country so that the citizens face any kind of problem due to the lockdown.
However, CAIT said that there was a loss of business of about 3.15 lakh crores due to the last 21 days of lockdown in the country.
CAIT’s National General Secretary Praveen Khandelwal said that there are about 7 crore traders across the country, out of which about 1.5 crore traders deal in essential commodities. But only 40 million of them continue the supply chain of essential commodities across the country.
Khandelwal said that the reason for this is that despite the clear guidelines of the central government, the transport facility has not been available in sufficient quantity in the states so far.
The CAIT General Secretary said that about 80 percent of the employees have moved to their villages due to the lockdown, while only 20 percent of the employees along with the, traders continue to supply essential commodities.
Khandelwal has urged all the state governments and the central government to provide curfew pass facility to traders in all states and provide adequate transport facility for uninterrupted supply of essential goods so that people can easily access to essential commodities.
