Residents stock up on essentials ahead of curfew
The government’s decision to impose a curfew this weekend in the light of the surge in Covid-19 cases in the Capital has sparked fears of a lockdown.
With the Delhi government announcing a weekend curfew from 10pm on Friday to 5am on Monday, several residents rushed to departmental stores in their neighbourhoods and stocked up on essentials, worried that a full lockdown may be in store.
There were serpentine queues outside several departmental stores in the city on Friday.
Bags of rice and atta, cartons of packaged milk, packets of salt and sugar, ready-to-eat noodles, toothpaste and mosquito repellents were among the wide range of products that residents bought from a departmental store in Malviya Nagar.
“It is better to replenish our stock of day-to-day goods and groceries. You never know what happens after this weekend,” said Pawan Thakur, a 66-year-old resident of the south Delhi colony.
The government’s decision to impose a curfew this weekend in the light of the surge in Covid-19 cases in the Capital has sparked fears of a lockdown.
While shops selling essential goods are exempted in the weekend curfew, and are most likely to remain out of the ambit of stringent restrictions, residents fear several products may go out of stock in the coming days.
“It is better to buy things now. Covid-19 cases are increasing every day. The weekend curfew may turn into a full-fledged lockdown for a week or so, you never know,” said Ashok Randhawa, a resident of Kalkaji K-block, who went to a departmental store on Friday to get his stock of household essentials refilled.
In the last few days, several resident welfare associations (RWA) in the city have been circulating messages on WhatsApp urging members to refill their stock of essentials at one go, preferably, so that they don’t have to step out frequently.
“We have also stressed in such groups that when people go out to run errands, there is a likelihood of shops getting crowded within a short span of time. So, people must maintain social distancing and go for staggered timings by coordinating with other residents in the group,” said Saurabh Gandhi, general secretary of United Residents of Delhi, which is a collective of around 1,800 RWAs in the city.
As a large number of people across the city stepped out to buy essentials on Friday, staffers at several departmental stores urged customers to maintain distancing and stand in queues, while screening everyone entering their premises — practices that many stores gave up after new cases dropped in February.
Several vendors in prominent vegetable and spice markets were spotted requesting people to maintain distance fearing that failure to adhere to rules could potentially mean a lockdown in the coming days.
“Things are scary now. Every second person is getting infected. But a lockdown would be like a major setback in such bad times. We will take all preventive steps to make sure that such a situation does not arise,” said Brijesh Mehta, owner of a prominent wholesale vegetable shop in east Delhi’s Mayur Vihar-I, which witnessed relatively high footfall on Friday.