Journalism of Courage
Advertisement
Premium

Day one of reopening: Not too many customers at Pimpri market, and not much social distancing

In an order issued on Thursday, Pimpri-Chinchwd Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar had allowed opening of all shops, including salons, beauty parlours and garages, from 9 am to 5 pm.

third Economic package, Govt on agriculture, relief fund for farmers, coronavirus, covid-19 relief fund farmers, coronavirus india, nirmala sitharaman, indian express The order also allowed all key markets in the twin city, where non-essential shops sell an array of articles and clothes, to re-open. (Express photo by Shashi Ghosh)

A day after the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation allowed shops at market places to open, confusion prevailed among shopkeepers in Pimpri market about which parts of the market were allowed to be open on day one. The few customers who turned up did wear masks but didn’t bother keeping a distance from each other.

In an order issued on Thursday, Pimpri-Chinchwd Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar had allowed opening of all shops, including salons, beauty parlours and garages, from 9 am to 5 pm. The order also allowed all key markets in the twin city, where non-essential shops sell an array of articles and clothes, to re-open.

Raja Sawant, a local activist, said,”PCMC did a good thing by allowing Pimpri market to open. For the last two months, the shopkeepers and their families have suffered a lot. But since it was the first day, social distancing was not observed. We will be going around the market tomorrow and trying to spread awareness about social distancing”.

Haresh Bodani, a local community leader and prominent businessman, said, “PCMC deserves praise for allowing shopkeepers to function. Traders and shopkeepers went through a bad time during the lockdown… but since it was the first day, there were hardly any customers. Though everyone was wearing a mask, social distancing was missing. We will hold a meeting and set up a team to spread awareness about social distancing.”Hardikar, who visited the market on Friday, said, “There was confusion among shopkeepers about which side should remain open. We have allowed one side to remain open on one day and another side the next day. We have allowed parking in the same manner. I don’t agree that there was no social distancing… it was there but not to a great degree… from Monday, I am sure the market will streamline its operations. Otherwise, as I have already stated, we will close it down”.

He added that in other markets in Bhosari, Masulkar Colony and Chinchwad, social distancing was maintained.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories
Tags:
  • COVID-19 Pimpri Chinchwad Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation
Edition
Install the Express App for
a better experience
Featured
Trending Topics
News
Multimedia
Follow Us
Long ReadsDevice used to scare monkeys became a Diwali rage in Bhopal. Then came the eye injuries
X