MADURAI
One thousand take-away vegetable bags were sold out at 10 locations across the city through mobile outlets on Wednesday. A Madurai Corporation official said that 100 vegetable bags were sold at each location.
In view of the huge demand for these bags, the Corporation has decided to reduce the price of the bag by ₹50. These bags will have 16 different vegetables and be sold at ₹200 from Thursday.
The sale of these bags by the Corporation is to prevent crowding of people at markets as a measure to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. Volunteers from various non-governmental organisations helped in selling these bags to the people.
Each vegetable bag, which will be priced at ₹200, will contain essential vegetables like potato, onion, cabbage, carrot, tomato, brinjal, green chilli and ginger.
A Corporation official said that though the vegetable bags were sold out on Wednesday, the civic body decided to reduce the price of the bag as it was also difficult to give change to the people. “Many people paid ₹500 and it took a lot of time to give them the change. So, we reduced the number of vegetables from 19 to 16 and the cost of the bag to tackle this problem,” said the official.
Also, the new price would be affordable to many more people, said the official.
Banu Balakrishnan, a resident of Kochadai, said that the sale of these bags was a boon for the people during the lockdown. “We are scared of buying vegetables at markets as it is extremely difficult to maintain personal distance there,” she said.
Advocate S. Muthukumar, a volunteer, said that on Wednesday they sold vegetable bags even in the parts of Anna Nagar which were cordoned off after reporting of COVID-19 positive cases.
The volunteers said that the civic body had provided face masks, gloves and sanitisers to them. Personal distance between customers was also ensured during the sale of the vegetable bags, they added.
