Crowd control at markets a tough task for authorities

TNN | Mar 31, 2020, 04.54 AM IST

Overcrowded vegetable markets have become a major problem for the district authorities in maintaining the social distancing norms since the beginning of the nation-wide lockdown. As part of tackling the situation, the authorities have come up with a slew of ideas.

The district administration was forced to shut down the central vegetable market within a few hours after opening for business on the first day of the lockdown. Even police could not control the mad rush. The authorities have reduced the business hours, in vain.

Markings on the ground were introduced to keep safe distance between shoppers. But, people ignored the norms when it was announced that the market would be closed at 9am. Pandi, a vendor, said that people just rushed in during the closure time desperately to buy vegetables.

P S Murugan, president, Mattuthavani Vegetable Market Association, said that they had witnessed big crowd during weekdays. "It was only on Sundays that we saw such large crowds," he said.

Corporation commissioner S Visakan says that people should minimize their visits to the market at a crisis period. The corporation has the main markets and spread them out on empty roads. This has helped in controlling the crowds to some extent, but the response from the vendors was lukewarm as they had to move to new locations as the shops were spread out in the four zones. Now the corporation is using 100 of its LMV vehicles to distribute vegetables in each of the 100 wards.

Theni district administration has come up with a better solution. On the instructions from district collector Pallavi M Baldev bags of assorted vegetable were distributed. The bag priced at Rs 150, has around 18 vegetables. Sources said that they had arranged 50 such bags on Sunday that are sold out in one hour. From Tuesday they have planned to double the number of bags.