A day after witnessing pandemonium when the three-day shutdown was relaxed on Tuesday, the situation turned to normal with no panic buying after administration decided to offer relaxation window everyday from Wednesday.
The decision to completely shut retail trade at Central Market, district’s wholesale market for vegetables and fruits by keeping general public out of bounds helped to contain crowding. Only retail merchants would be allowed to lift products from wholesalers between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. from this market. About 250 retail traders functioning from the Central Market complex were asked to shut operations temporarily even as administration has promised to relocate them.
There were no queues in front of milk booths, grocery shops and supermarkets when the lockdown was relaxed between 7 a.m. and noon on Wednesday, mainly because people were told this would be a regular feature.
On the other hand, there were reports that there was short supply of essentials in the wholesale market as consignments were not arriving from other places. Everywhere, traders have been facing shortage of manual labourers to load and unload products.
Though vegetables and fruits were normal in supply, many retail merchants have jacked up prices exploiting the situation. This is in stark contrast to situation elsewhere in the state where farmers were throwing produces for want of good price and inability to sell them.
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