SAMBALPUR: With people of Sambalpur resorting to panic buying leading to overcrowding at markets, the district administration has decided to provide grocery at their doorsteps from Thursday.The move comes following a meeting on Wednesday to take stock of coronavirus prevention measures where issues like overcrowding at shops and panic buying were raised.
The administration has shortlisted 79 grocery stores across nine wards of the Sambalpur city and people can contact any of the store nearest to their ward. “The shopkeeper after collecting multiple orders from one locality, will send the stocks to the area through autorickshaws. We have identified volunteers who will collect the ordered items and deliver them at people’s houses. All precautions will be taken to ensure that the grocery packets are sanitised and there is no multiple handling of the packets”, said an official of the administration.
Meanwhile, panic buying was witnessed at several places in the city right after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for nationwide lockdown on Monday evening.
A local, Karuna Sahu went ahead to purchase a large stock of onions, potatoes and rice after coming to know that wholesale shops are running out of stock. “I bought potatoes for `25 a kg a day before but today, the price went up to `35 per kg. If shops are unable to maintain the stock, people will face shortage of food materials very soon”, he said.
Price of onion and rice was also high at the Khetrajpur market, which is the largest wholesale market in the city. Most of the wholesalers here claimed that the stocks have become low in the last few days. Locals, however, allege that traders at Khetrajpur are hoarding food grains and vegetables to sell them at exorbitant rate at the later phase of lockdown.
Like wholesalers, retail shopkeepers are also claiming to have limited stock of essential commodities as trucks carrying the goods are not reaching Sambalpur on time. To deal with the shortage, traders are restricting people from buying groceries and vegetables in large quantities. They are apprehensive of the situation worsening if the trucks do not arrive by the end of this week.
The homeless and daily wagers are also facing the brunt. Though they are being provided food through various sources but are still apprehensive that they might not be able to buy regular food items once the prices rise due to shortage.
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