The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has sent out an advisory to its members to shut down the operations of their restaurants till March 31, 2020, or till the spread of coronavirus comes to an end.

NRAI, in a statement issued to its members, said that although the decision entails major financial impact, but temporarily shutting down operation would be in the larger interest of its members, their employees and the customers.

The statement further reads as, "We at NRAI have beenclosely following what has been happening with the coronavirus outbreak. We findourselves today in an unprecedented situation where we are compelled to makesome difficult decisions which have massive financial implications on our businesses,but we are doing this in the larger benefit for our teams, our guests and ourcommunities."

The move of NRAI comes as most of the employees inrestaurants use public transport to commute and run a huge risk of gettinginfected and further becoming carriers of the deadly virus. In order to avoidany such risk, NRAI advised to shut down their operations and help curtail thespread of the deadly virus.

As per the association, this is an extraordinary situation that expects support such as converting fixed rentals to variable revenue share, allowing input tax credit on GST, a moratorium on loan repayment, waiver of interest, reduction on energy costs, deferred payment of license fee and taxes.