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Coronavirus lockdown: 45-minute journey took five hours for truck carrying disinfectant for Kaushambi high-rises
Ghaziabad: Even though the roads are empty, it took more than five hours for a commercial vehicle laden with sodium hypochlorite, a disinfectant, to cover a distance
Ghaziabad: Even though the roads are empty, it took more than five hours for a commercial vehicle laden with sodium hypochlorite, a disinfectant, to cover a distance of 40 kilometres — a journey which takes about 45 minutes in usual traffic — on Wednesday to reach Ghaziabad’s Kaushambi from the adjoining Hapur district. The 22 highrises of Kaushambi township needed the disinfectant as their stock had run out and more was needed to prevent any further outbreak of Sars-Cov-2 there.
On March 22, a 41-year-old resident of Kaushambi was found positive for Covid-19 and thereafter, was rushed to a hospital in Delhi. Teams of the district health department took up massive sanitisation drives in a one-kilometre radius of the highrise of the affected patient and asked the respective resident welfare associations (RWA) to take up sanitisation daily.
“We needed 1,000 litres of sodium hypochlorite and finally one vendor from Hapur agreed to supply. When the driver started, he was stopped a number of times and he fled. After this, we sent a legal notice through our lawyer to the Ghaziabad administration and sought their help, else we would file a petition in the Supreme Court,” said VK Mittal, president of Kaushambi Township’s apex RWA body (Karwa).
The residents then arranged for another vendor who agreed but had to face a number of obstacles before he could reach Kaushambi around 3.30pm on Wednesday.
“The superintendent of police (traffic) assured us of help and flashed the number of the vehicle to the cops stationed at the check posts. Despite this, the vehicle of the second vendor was stopped a number of times before he finally reached. The disinfectant comes under essential supplies but we were saddened to see how the supply chain is being affected during the lockdown period. The present stock will last for at least 10 days but seeing the conditions we placed another order on Wednesday itself,” Mittal added.
He said that after the vehicle started its journey back to Hapur, the driver was again stopped a number of times midway.
The Kaushambi township has a population of about 10,000 and is located next to the Anand Vihar border that Ghaziabad shares with Delhi. Normally, a vehicle starting from Hapur would reach Kaushambi in about 45-50 minutes.
Superintendent of police (traffic) SN Singh could not be reached despite repeated attempts.
When contacted over the issue, district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said he will look into the issue.
“There are orders that vehicles carrying essential supplies will not be stopped in between and their movement will not be hindered under any circumstances,” he said.
The DM Wednesday evening also rolled out fresh directions in a statement jointly signed by him and senior superintendent of police, Kalanidhi Naithani.
The order said that various essential commodities such as pulses, milk, fruits, vegetables, medicines, etc., along with chemicals such as sodium hypochlorite, bleaching powder, etc., have been kept out of the purview of lockdown orders.
“Therefore it is directed that no such vehicle will be stopped while coming in and going out of the district,” the joint order stated.
