FAIVM urges government to lift restrictions on the number of guests in wedding ceremonies to save lives of millions of service providers

EE News Desk Aug 11, 2020

Federation of All India Vyapar Mandal (FAIVM) has written to the Government of India for relaxation in restriction on number of Guest wedding and other ceremonies to save Tent, banquet and other associated sector engaged in the field.

At present, 50 persons are allowed to attend the wedding ceremony from both sides together and some state governments like Uttar Pradesh and Punjab have reduced the number of 50 to just 30. It is important to mention that no matter how small or large the capacity or size of the tent / banquet hall is, the number of guests will be restricted to 50.

Tent, Pandal, catering, pavilion, banquet hall, as well as millions of people like farm house, hotel, band baja, dhol, DJ, light, decoration, event planner, flower decorators etc who provide services in wedding and other ceremonial functions have no work since March when lock down was imposed . Other sector of Economy has been opened up but due to restriction on number of guest, these people are not getting any job till now.

Tent catering businessmen are effectively able to get booking only for 60-90 days in an entire year and has to manage their livelihood for full year out of this income . This year's wedding season ended on 1 July 2020 which will now come again in November and December for a very few auspicious days and then the wedding season will start again from May 2021.

In this connection federation of All India Vyapar Mandal (FAIVM) has written to Union Home Secretary who is also chairman of National Executive Committee formed under National Disaster Management Authority and requested him that in the process of unlocking, the restriction on the number of guests in a wedding ceremony should be relaxed and the number of guests should be determined based on the area of the wedding venue (tents, banquet halls, farm houses). All the tents, canopy, banquet hall and farm house in India are committed to follow the prescribed SOP in this regard.

The FAIVM has demanded that the number of guests attending the wedding should be decided on the basis of the area of the wedding venue (tents, banquet halls, farm houses). One guest per 25 square feet should be te bench mark thus in the area of 10,000 sq feet , 400 guest should be allowed.

National General Secretary of the FAIVM Shri VK Bansal informed that a model SOP has also been sent to the government in this regard and the government has been assured that all the tents, canopy, banquet halls and farm houses in India will follow prescribed SOP / Code of Conduct strictly .

The proposed SOP / Code of Conduct prescribes sanitizer at the entrance, to wear a mask is mandatory, instead of buffet sitting arrangement should be setup at wedding venue, full adherence to social distancing, Providing chairs to all guest should be mandatory, consuming alcohol, tobacco and cigarettes and spitting at the ceremony will be prohibited, persons above 65 years of age, children below 10 years and pregnant women are not allowed to enter the ceremony venue. It has also been proposed that in case of non-adherence of rules and SOP, strict action against organizers of ceremony should be taken.

A copy of the letter has also been sent to the Prime Minister Modi, Rajnath Singh, Piyush Goyal and Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive, NITI Aayog, Government of India.