Restaurant owners, residents express unhappiness over new no 'take home' food service rule in Noida, Greater Noida

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New Delhi: According to the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police, a ban on take-home services provided by restaurants and eateries in Noida and Greater Noida has been announced. The services from restaurants and eateries will not be allowed during a night curfew in the district, which is from 10 pm-6 am. 

“There will be a ban on Take Home services of hotels and dhabas etc, after 10 pm till 6 am. CrPC Section 144 is imposed in Gautam Buddh Nagar. Additional Director General (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar has instructed all districts in the state to ensure compliance of the daily 10 pm to 6 am night curfew,” the police statement read, as reported in the media.

Additionally, police commissioner Alok Singh, while talking to Hindustan Times, said that home deliveries were considered as “essential services” only during the first wave of COVID-19, which was last year when restaurants and hotels were not allowed to open for dine-in customers.

“Now that restaurants and hotels are open through the day, food deliveries will not be considered essential services during the night curfew,” he said.

This announcement was made on Wednesday (September 1, 2021) following which the restaurant owners in Noida expressed disagreement. Varun Khera, President of the National Restaurants Association of India, in an interview with the Hindustan Times, said, “Since the lockdown in 2020, food deliveries were considered essential. All through the Covid curfew this year too, food deliveries have been going on without a hitch and became the only source of income for restaurants in the district. Almost 70% of the home delivery orders come after 8-9 pm and go on till 11 pm to 1 am. If this is taken away from us, we will not be able to survive.”

Another owner, Devendra Awana was quoted as saying, “Although our restaurant is known for our dine-in service, we began to deliver more after the Covid pandemic and now it has become a major source of our revenue. There are barely any lunch orders and home deliveries during dinner time, which starts at 9 pm and goes on till midnight, sustained us. If this is also taken away from us, we may have to shut down.”

Meanwhile, the 10 pm deadline does not only affect the restaurant owners but also poses several problems for the customers. Many of the working individuals said that they all work in the corporate and IT sector and have dinner after 10 pm, but following this new rule, they will not be able to order food even if they are tired after a tiring day. Many residents of Noida expressed their unhappiness and stated that the time restrictions on home deliveries of food do not gel with the lifestyle of people living in the city.

Another owner of Asian Empire restaurant in Sector 76, Mohit Bhardwaj also spoke around the same lines. He said, “the lifestyle of those in corporate and IT sector is such that they have their dinner only after 11 pm and some who work at night shifts also order food from us at 1 am. If we shut out operations at 10 pm, that means we cannot take any order after 9-9.15 pm. In Sector 76 alone, there are at least 10 more such eateries like ours who have at least a hundred customers in nearby high rises and this move will affect them all.”

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh on Thursday recorded 36 fresh COVID-19 cases which pushed the infection tally to 17,09,386, while with no daily death due to coronavirus being registered in a span of 24 hours. Additionally, 11 more COVID-19 patients have recovered from the disease in the state, taking the total number of recoveries so far to 16,86,287.

Over seven cases were reported from Lucknow, six from Maharajganj, three each from Budaun and Varanasi, two each from Allahabad, Kanpur Nagar, and Shrawasti, and one each from Gorakhpur, Meerut, Barabanki, Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Auraiya, Ballia, Bulandshahr, Jaunpur, Kanpur Dehat and Sitapur, a government bulletin said.