New Delhi, Apr 16 (PTI) Retailers Association of India (RAI) on Friday urged the Maharashtra government to permit non-food category retailers to carry out home deliveries for orders taken through phone and other electronic means.

Allowing non-food retailers to carry out home deliveries will ensure that people have fewer reasons to step outside, there is the easy availability of non-essential supplies and stricter adherence to social distancing, RAI said in a statement.

The retailers' body argued that apart from food and FMCG items, people also need clothing, personal care products, baby products, electrical and hardware items, work and kitchen-related essentials and other non-food items when at home to meet their daily needs.

RAI CEO Kumar Rajagopalan said, "To enable fulfilling these needs without hardships, all sizes and formats of non-food retail should be allowed to take orders over the phone and other electronic means for home deliveries".

The store premises can be allowed to be opened to the limited extent of fulfilling home delivery orders while being closed for walk-in customers. This ensures social distancing and convenience to customers, he added.

In the wake of the rising cases of COVID-19 cases in the state, Maharashtra had declared a 15-day curfew from Wednesday, entailing stricter curbs on public activities but stopped short of announcing a full-scale lockdown.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)