₹500, ₹850 ₹1,000 PACKS

7,000 mobile grocery units of civic body in city from today

Srikkanth.D@timesgroup.com

Chennai:09.04.2020

To meet the grocery needs of city residents hit by the lockdown, Chennai Corporation will roll out 7,000 mobile grocery units across the city from Thursday. Commissioner G Prakash, who made the announcement on Wednesday after meeting representatives of traders’ association at the Ripon Buildings, said 5,000 tricycles and 2,000 autorickshaws and vans would be used for the purpose.

“We have collaborated with scrap dealers to convert tricycles into vegetable carts for the purpose. Since most scrap dealers  have been out of business because of the lockdown, this will also help them,” said A M Vikramaraja, president, Federation of Tamil Nadu Traders’ Association.

According to Vikramaraja, each pack will contain an assortment of household items, including rice, dal, oil, soaps and biscuit packets, and will be available as ₹500, ₹850 and ₹1,000 packs. All vehicles will have price list for people to check. The civic body will provide special ID cards to the vendors and the vehicles will carry the Chennai Corporation logo.

CMDA allows door delivery of Koyambedu mkt veggies

The vendors will be provided with safety gloves and masks which they must wear at all times. Several other departments, too, have come up with schemes to ensure people stay indoors without worrying about their daily needs.

The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), for instance, has introduced a scheme wherein people can dial, order online or log on to food delivery apps to access fruits and vegetables directly from the Koyambedu Wholesale Market Complex (KWMC) that would be delivered at their doorsteps.

According to a release from the CMDA, people can contact 7305050541, 7305050542, 7305050543, 7305050544, 9025653376 and 044-24791133 for placing order. A link has been created in the CMDA portal http://www.cmdachennai.gov.in for placing orders online.

Orders can be placed for a minimum of 25 families and not individual customers. Combo packets comprising a maximum of 16 varieties of vegetables or five types of fruits for a price range of ₹200 to ₹250 is also available. Orders can be placed through food delivery apps such as Zomato, Swiggy and Dunzo to buy the combo packets, the release said. The state horticulture department, too, has pressed 15 vehicles one for each zone to deliver vegetables, said N Subbaiyan, director of horticulture. Each unit will carry up to two tonnes of vegetables based on prebooking, he said.

Vegetables are procured from farms in Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Tiruvallur, Vellore, Villupuram, Tiruvannamalai and Cuddalore districts. Some of them are even procured from Dindigul district, he said. For retail consumers, the department also offers combo packs of veggies and fruits. A vegetable combo is priced at 300 and fruit combo is priced at 500. They will be door-delivered by mobile units operationalized by separate set of 15 mobile units across the city. For booking veggies or fruits online visit: www.ethottam.com