CHENNAI: Shutting down pavement fruits and vegetable shops and reducing grocery shopping time to a mere four hours led to crowding at supermarkets in many parts of the city on Saturday. The queues were especially longer in areas that had fewer supermarkets.
Residents said that in order to reduce this rush hour shopping, push-carts that sell vegetables on streets should not only be allowed but also actively endorsed by the government. They said it will reduce the crowds at supermarkets.
The supermarkets on Montieth Road and Ethiraj Salai in Egmore were crowded as the nearby street market for fruits and vegetables on Marshalls Road was shut on the day. A similar trend was observed in Chromepet too. People started queuing up outside supermarkets at 6 am sharp and rushed into the shops as they opened.
Nagarajan, a shopper in the area, said that since Saturday was the first day he visited a supermarket in six months. "On most days of the lockdown, I bought vegetables from a push-cart that came to my street every day. I purchased the other groceries from the local small shop," he said.
Nagarajan added that this was the safest option for him as he lives with his aged parents. "We have had very little need to go outside our street. This helped us remain self-sustained. Now I have to stand outside a crowded supermarket," he said.
Usha Rani, a resident of T Nagar, agreed with his opinion and said that the push-cart vendor who visits her street sold a minimum of eight kinds of vegetables everyday. "I used to go to the supermarket only once a week as I would shop all my fruits and vegetables from push-carts. It is particularly scary to shop in T Nagar because of the crowd that is always there," she said, adding that the government should encourage push-carts and enable more pavement vendors to sell vegetables to be mobile so as to prevent crowding more efficiently.
Another problem was that push-cart vendors are still unsure if they are allowed to sell or not. For example, some vegetable vendors continue to sell their produce on Ranganathan Street on Saturday. "Nobody came and told us today that we cannot sell. So we went ahead with our business," said one of the vendors.
However, pushcart vendors, who start from there and go around the neighbouring streets had received the information they were not allowed. However, in some parts of Anna Nagar, pushcart vendors continued to go around the city while pavement vendors were prevented from planting tents.
Even as confusion prevailed on which kind of shops are allowed and which are not, residents, while welcoming the reduction of shopping time, said that being too stringent may have the opposite effect of what is expected.