Thiruvananthapuram: The licences of two big retail outlets in Thiruvananthapuram - Ramachandran and Pothys - stand cancelled. Nearly 120 employees of Ramachandran's supermarket at Attakulangara and one in Pothys at Overbridge have tested positive.
"These two major outlets have increased the possibility of a wider spread of the disease in the city," Thiruvananthapuram Mayor K Sreekumar said, while announcing the decision to cancel the licences on Monday.
"Though we had repeatedly asked them to follow COVID protocols, the management of these outlets have disregarded our pleas. They have wilfully disobeyed the Corporation guidelines," the Mayor said.
Sources in the Corporation said both Ramachandran and Pothys had not put in place social distancing guidelines in their staff quarters. "Beds were stacked one upon the other and there was not much space in between these storied cots. The managements also failed in the regular monitoring of the health of its employees," the source said.
Both the outlets, it is said, continued to operate without taking any precautions even after the first cases were reported. Health officials who visited Pothys after a person was tested positive found employees who were supposed to be in quarantine fully active inside the outlet. It is also alleged that the management allowed employees, who returned from Tamil Nadu after the lockdown, to work without asking them to undergo the mandatory 14-day quarantine.
The action against the two retail outlets has finally come but not before there was strong public outrage against the Corporation's delay in taking punitive measures.
The Mayor himself said the withdrawal of the licences was only a "temporary measure".
