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Tamil Nadu’s wholesale market shut down amid Covid-19 outbreak
The sudden shutdown of the Koyambedu market will have an effect on the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables in the city of 10.5 million people, wholesalers said.
Koyambedu, one of the country’s largest perishable fruit and vegetable wholesale market with over 3000 shops was shut down on Monday after at least 300 of the 527 new cases reported in Tamil Nadu on Monday were linked to it, making it one of the biggest coronavirus hotspots in the state.
“We are shutting [Koyambedu] down temporarily till further orders,” a senior official from the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) who did not wish to be named, told Hindustan Times. “We are going to take those people who work there to a quarantine facility. They will be tested, and those found positive will be treated as per standard protocol.” The market premises will be disinfected over the next two days, officials said.
The market was already running at a decreased capacity on account of the national lockdown, which was recently extended to May 17. The first case linked to the Koyambedu cluster emerged on April 19.
The sudden shutdown will have an effect on the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables in the city of 10.5 million people, wholesalers said. “The officials came here at around 4 pm and ordered the market’s closure without any warning whatsoever. Produce valued at ₹5 crore is stuck inside the market and 250 trucks with ₹10 crore worth of vegetables are on their way to Koyambedu. This is not a small roadside operation that we can simply push our carts back home,” said GD Rajasekaran, president, Koyambedu Periyar Market Association.
Koyambedu spread over 295 acres, is one of the largest vegetable, flower and fruit market complexes in India. It houses more than 1000 wholesalers and 2000 retail shops. In non-pandemic times, Koyambedu receives nearly 1,500 truckloads of horticultural produce and at least 100,000 visitors, daily. During the lockdown, around 400 trucks visited the market daily.
State officials said Monday that 600 people linked to the market would be taken to quarantine facilities — there are four in Chennai — but several others who worked at the market have returned to their villages across Chennai, Kancheepuram, Cuddalore, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu. Officials said that the total number of workers was unclear at present.
“Many people who worked at the market have also returned to their native villages,” the CMDA official said. “We don’t know how many people have returned home. At present, we have about 600 people who we are going to send to quarantine,” he added.
The Koyambedu cluster had so far recorded at least 300 cases, including Monday’s cases reported from Villipuram (49) and Perambalur (25). Officials surmise that the number of contacts who will need to be traced would be several times those traced in connection with the Tablighi Jamaat religious conference held in New Delhi in March, from which over 1000 attendees had returned to the state. The conference was a hotspot and several states were involved in tracing the attendees and their contacts to track the spread of the coronavirus infection.
CMDA officials said that they had urged traders at Koyambedu to move to another location within the city, as traders in other parts of the state like Trichy and Tirunelveli had done once the lockdown was implemented in March. “It is a private trade so unless they come forward and cooperate we could not do anything. We have been meeting with them regularly, they were simply not interested,” one official told HT.
However, wholesalers claimed that there was no communication from the government, let alone alternative arrangements. On April 28, retail traders and fruit sellers from Koyambedu had been relocated to the bus terminus at Madhavaram, a suburb in the city’s northwest. Asking wholesalers to do likewise would be difficult as few open spaces in the city have the capacity to handle 3000 tonnes of vegetables each day, Rajasekaran said. According to government sources, the wholesale market would be relocated to Tirumazhisai, on the western outskirts of the city, about 15 km from Koyambedu.
Another point of infection was a barber who owned a salon in Koyambedu, the official pointed out. The barber had come in contact with over 100 customers either at their homes or when they visited his salon. Efforts are on to trace his contacts, as well.
The government anticipates a major disruption in supplies for at least the next three days. According to a senior official in the agriculture ministry, the government has asked farmer producer companies (FPC) that already supply about 12 tonnes of vegetables from farms directly to consumers to increase their supplies 10-fold. That according to the official would take care of 60% of the the city’s vegetable demand. However, the capacity of FPCs to scale up deliveries so much at such short notice is doubtful.
