No biz in Punjab, wedding planners, caterers move to Haryana and Chandigarh

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, September 17

With wedding and events business badly affected in Punjab due to the limitation on gatherings, a large numbers of industry vendors, including florists, caterers, disc jockeys, sound and light system operators and other artistes, have started moving to Haryana and Chandigarh to get some work.

The wedding market in the state is staring at a hard reset in the face of Covid. A number of palaces and resorts are on lease, and the owners have been badly hit as they had paid the lease amount in advance and earnings are nil since the past few months.

Satish Arora, president of Punjab Hotel, Resorts and Restaurant association, said: “Marriage palaces and banquets in Haryana and Chandigarh have started organising events at half capacity. Caterers, florists and tent owners have started moving to these places to get some work.”

Arora said: “Lavish resorts and banquets have been hit hard as big fat weddings have dried up in the state, upsetting the entire event industry.”

He said there were around 4,500 resorts and marriage palaces in Punjab and almost all of them were lying closed with the cap on gatherings.

Gurdeep Singh Walia, a hotelier and general secretary of Hotels Association, Patiala, said the pandemic had hit them badly and there was no business at all, due to which he was planning to start a catering business in Chandigarh or Haryana as they had huge committed expenses to bear.

Moreover, these hotel and palace owners do not see business coming back to pre-Covid level anytime soon in the near future.

The present scenario is a far cry from the “big fat” Indian wedding, replete with thousands of guests and multi-day revelry with cocktail parties, live bands, and elaborate feasts held at exciting locales.