Traders, including retail shop owners of Dhanbad and Bokaro, are demanding the reopening of markets after suffering huge losses in the wake of the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown.

A delegation of traders from Dhanbad met deputy commissioner (DC) Amit Kumar on Saturday and apprised him of the difficulties being faced by them in paying salaries to their employees, electricity bills and shop and godown rents at a time their income had dried up.

The traders requested the DC to allow shops to open while promising to strictly obey social-distancing norms.

The Bokaro Chamber of Commerce and Industry has also sent a letter to the chief minister Hemant Soren and tagged him on Twitter, urging him to allow the shops to roll up shutters.

“We expect some positive development with regard to our demands. The government may follow the example of states such as Bihar that are allowing shops to remain open on specific days of the week,” Rajesh Kumar Gupta, former president of Federation of Dhanbad Zilla Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told The Telegraph on Sunday.

Gupta said the relaxations provided to the industrial units on April 20 would not be beneficial if the supply chain was not complete.

“With the shops closed, neither the factories will get all the necessary inputs to operate nor their finished products would be sold in the market,” Gupta added.

A delegation of Jharkhand Industries and Trade Association, led my secretary Umesh Heliwal, met JMM’s Tundi Mathura Prasad Mahto on Saturday to stress the need to reopen the markets.

Dhanbad has over 30,000 small and large shops.

Barring shops selling milk, grocery and vegetables, all are closed since the Janata Curfew on March 22 and the subsequent lockdown.

Sanjay Baid, president of Bokaro Chamber of Commerce, said: “No one can deny that a pandemic such as Covid-19 needs exceptional safety measures and a cautious approach, but at the same time a prolonged lockdown can create a deep economic depression that will be difficult to deal with.”

He said the traders were ready to follow all the precautionary measures, but shops needed to reopen to bring back the economy on track. “Over 6,000 shopkeepers of Bokaro and Chas are facing great financial difficulties,” Baid added.