A Much RELAXED Lockdown Day-5! But Where’s All That Queue & Crowd Today?  

A Much RELAXED Lockdown Day-5! But Where’s All That Queue & Crowd Today?

Mangaluru: Wow- where’s all that crowd and queue that we saw yesterday, where people were swarmed in front of the grocery stores, supermarkets, milk booths, medical shops, etc, as if the world was going to end on Tuesday. Last evening after District in-charge minister Kota Srinivas Poojary made an announcement during a meeting that grocery stores/fruits/vegetable shops will be open from 7 am to 12 noon from Wednesday, April 1 and that there will be no complete lockdown as such, people were relieved after few days of complete lockdown, but he stressed upon that people should maintain social distancing and follow guidelines in order to contain COVID-19.

The minister also said that Groceries shops, medical, gas supply, banks, and petrol pumps will be open as per the timings, but central market on Wednesday will be completely restricted for public except for retailers so that they can buy the commodities/fruits/vegetables, and later sell them with a margin for the consumers. Minister had also said, “People will not be allowed to stand in large queues in front of grocery shops or supermarkets, and if that happens the shopkeepers will have to take the list of grocery items from the customers, along with their phone numbers. And once the grocery items are packed and ready, they can call the customers to pick up their items”. But with less crowd showing up for shopping today, there was no need to take the list and so on.

With the announcement made that people can buy groceries every day between 7 am and 12 noon, people took it easy today, after a hectic day yesterday standing in the queue for hours, and some even relaxing on the chairs provided by MCC until their turn came for purchases. City streets only saw a few vehicles, I guess everyone is relaxing or taking a long nap after Tuesday’s ordeal. If you look at the Kadri-Urwa-Kankanady-Bejai markets today, they are totally different from what they look yesterday- hardly any people in the queue.

FOLLOWING PICTURES SHOW HOW CENTRAL MARKET LOOKS TODAY

But even the Central Market which was the place of chaos and crowd looked empty since the cops were allowing only retailers to come into the market and all the loading and unloading of products was done from late night till the wee hours of this morning. The entire central market area was under the control of cops and officials from MCC. Prices on produce and fruits have not gone up as such, but certain fruits and veggies were not available, due to lockdown and no transportation was available to deliver them.

So here we are on the sixth day of Lockdown- keep your fingers crossed until this evening or night, as to what the verdict will be from the minister, MLA, DC, and others regarding Thursday- till then pray hard that the shopping time for groceries remains the same tomorrow from 7 am-12 noon- and also days to follow.

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