In Vadodara, residents still await doorstep delivery of essential items

On Friday morning, several residents reached the Polo ground, but the ground was empty. Police were deployed to ensure that vendors do not set up stalls. Several people reached the Vadodara APMC market in Sayajipura to purchase vegetables directly leading to much pandemonium.

However, the 24 tractors and vendors designated by the VMC to make rounds of the 12 administrative wards helped take off the load. “We are asking the district supply officer to look into the issue of the non-responsive grocery stores. We have called a meeting with all interested stores and they agreed to deliver. It should be in place in a couple of days. We did have a chaotic situation that could have turned into a dangerous situation so we decided to immediately stop it. The handcarts will go about in all colonies so people don’t have to go out,” VMC Commissioner Nalin Upadhyay said.

On Friday, the APMC Sayajipura opened at 3 am and remained open for two hours beyond its routine time after the district collector held a meeting with the APMC on Thursday.

“The inflow of supplies was relatively similar as compared to other days. However the retail prices have inflated to as much as 100 per cent in some cases after vegetable and fruit markets were shut down. At the APMC, the rates are higher by 5-10 per cent. The prices however shot up between 50-100% at retail value,” said APMC inspector Pushprajsinh Gohil.

Meanwhile as huge crowds had gathered at the market, the administration made minor changes in the timings to contain the crowd.

“So far we haven’t faced any issue in terms of supplies. The farmers are still cooperating. If there is no panic scenario, the farmers will continue to come since the market mostly caters to the local farmers here,” Jani added.

Most e-commerce portals have also not yet begun delivering items. District Collector Shalini Agarwal told this newspaper that putting the logistics in place would take a few days. “Although all e-commerce and local stores have shown willingness to try to deliver at home, they are facing issues of manpower and logistics. Today we resolved issues of supermarket chains like Grofers by arranging tempos for them. We will help them streamline this so that a part of the population of the city can be covered through this delivery. People will get their groceries at home in a few days but it will definitely not be a service that can take the load of the entire city,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has taken a number of initiatives to ensure that residents do not step out during the lockdown. However, on Friday, more number of people ventured out of their houses and the city saw more vehicular movement.

Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra, said that the AMC ensured its complete control over the supply chain and was distributing free vegetables in slum.

“We tied up with suppliers, we provided our own trucks and our manpower and this way, everything was in AMC’s control,” said Nehra. The vegetable on wheels initiative too has seen major scale-up in three days.

(With inputs from Sohini Ghosh in ahmedabad)