Additional curbs have been ordered late on Tuesday in areas which come under the jurisdiction of 10 specific police stations in the city.
The new two-day order is applicable in the jurisdictions of Samarth police station, Khadak, Faraskhana, Swargate, Bund garden, Dattawadi, Yerawada, Khadki, Kondhwa, and Wanowrie police stations.
The Pune police have ordered a complete shutdown of grocery and vegetable retail shops from Wednesday midnight till Thursday midnight, which led to panic buying of essential commodities on Wednesday. Many milk parlours also witnessed big queues after the decision was announced.
In these ten areas, the police will only allow milk distributors to function for two hours, between 10 am and 12 noon - no essential commodities shop, no grocery or meat shops will be allowed to be open.
Ravindra Shisve, joint commissioner of Pune police, said,“Such an order is issued because Covid-19 cases were prevalent in microcluster in these areas. These areas need to get more priority and people need to follow social distancing norms. There is much to come in the near future.”
“We want to maintain the supply chain of essential commodities and that is why we are going in a step-wise manner,” said Shisve
{{/usCountry}}“We want to maintain the supply chain of essential commodities and that is why we are going in a step-wise manner,” said Shisve
{{/usCountry}}Vivek Shirsagar, managing director of Katraj Dairy, said, “If you cut short operations of an organisation like ours to two hours, it is bound to attract a crowd. One of our parlours operates for around 22 hours and the second one for 16 hours. If you tell the customers that it will only be open for two hours, how do you think they will react?”
Another major milk distributor in the old city area of Sadashiv peth are of Bharat Dugdhalay, witnessed a long queue of customers on Wednesday morning.
Senior police inspector Dadasaheb Chudappa of Vishrambaug police station had to disperse the crowd caused during the two-hour relaxation granted to milk distributors.
Shirish Chandorkar, partner at Bharat Dugdhalay, said, “If you reduce our working hours from eight to two without notice, people are bound to clamour. Not only the usual customers, but people from neighbouring areas also queued up to buy milk.”
“I suggest that time can be managed properly by the authorities. If the operating hours are extended and moved to the earlier part of the morning, that may help with crowd management,” said Chandorkar.
As the complete curfew will be observed until Thursday midnight, the grocery and vegetable shops are expected to open on Friday. However, the operational hours for all will only be between 10 am and 12 noon.