As malls gear up for opening, people to have different experience of shopping, eating

Coronavirus has not only changed the hygiene habits but also might change your shopping style, at least in malls. Now, before coming to malls you may have to book your space, wait for people to come out and for your turn to move inside and Arogya Setu app on your phone would be a must.

DLF, which owns some top malls in Delhi-NCR, has said that from Monday there would be no opening of malls like Mall of India- Noida, DLF Promenade -Delhi, DLF mall Saket

"We have still not received a formal notification regarding reopening of malls in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. We will be looking at opening the malls from Wednesday onwards," said Pushpa Bector, Executive Director, DLF shopping malls.

By the next weekend, DLF will open all malls for the public. "But, it will give you a completely different experience."

"We will strictly count footfalls for which we will take help of our software. Once there will enough persons inside the mall as per guidelines, we will stop entry and other visitors will have to wait. We will also set up canopies for the public who will have to wait," Bector said.

She also told that to encourage weekday shopping, DLF will start "golden hours" with discounts etc so that malls don't see very high footfalls during weekends which will defeat the concept of social distancing.

"Weekend would be a challenge for us but we will start golden hours, discounts etc to encourage people to visits malls on all days not only on weekends. It will help us to maintain MHA guidelines of social distancing," Bector said.

If you want to visit malls only to have good food than you may have to wait a bit long for seats as malls will have only 50 per cent seating.

Malls will have separate operational guidelines for food courts and restaurants.

"We have already reduced sitting in food courts by 50 per cent. We will strictly follow social distance guidelines and marshals will be deployed to keep an eye," Bector said

She said to enter the mall, Aarogya Setu App would be mandatory.

"Without it, mall security will not allow you to enter. People only with green status will be allowed and red status will be asked not to enter," Bector said.

Also, washrooms too will have limited entry of people and a certain amount of washrooms will be opened at a time.

( With inputs from ANI )