Extension of deadline for shops comes late; chaos, confusion rule the city

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:26.04.2020

The government’s midday decision to extend the deadline to close shops from 1pm to 3pm on Saturday did notdo much asstockswereexhaustedin no time with people hurrying to buy ahead of the stricter lockdown to be enforced in the city.

Around11am on Saturday,chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami made an announcement that shops could remain open till 3pm, but it was too late as most people were out to buy provisions early in the day and shopkeepers, unaware of the development, prepared to shut fearing police and authorities.

Stores that sold dry provisions, fruit vendors and pushcarts selling vegetables ran out of stock by noon at Triplicane, Royapettah and in several areas of the city. At Big Street as the stocks began to run dry, staff from provision began alerting customers. “We did not have stocks of maida, soya chunks, milk, atta and advised the waiting customers to look elsewhere,” said an employee of a shop.

In the rush to ensure enough food for the coming days, many were seen buying large quantities. “Usually people buy one packet of atta. Today, many bought four to five packets. People have also stopped being choosy about brands. They just wanted to buy any packet of the product they wanted,” said a staff at Ambika Appalam store in Adyar.

Eggs were sold at₹4.50 to₹5 per piece, but were in short supply in Zam Bazaar market. Riaz, a resident, had bought all five trays of eggs he found at a shop. “We are bachelors and survive on minimal cooking. Eggs come in as a handy dish to go with roti,” he said. Forgetting social distancing, people picked fights when a shop owner refusedtoselleggsin bulkto some of the customers.

Though police tried to pacify residents by assuring that vegetable pushcarts would be allowed to operate, the efforts provedfutiletodissuadethem from panic buying.

M K Ajit Kumar, a resident of Anna Nagar, had to return home without buying groceries. “I was scared to see the crowd in front of all the shops. There were long queues outside. People were crowding around the cash counter. I did not want to go in and take the risk of getting infected.”

TIMES VIEW

The state government has erred while making the hasty decision on Saturday to announce a total lockdown in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Salem and Tirupur from Sunday to Wednesday.

It didn’t give enough notice to people, if at all the decision was a result of deliberation. People thronged roads and markets on Saturday, raising concerns about a possible faster spread of the pandemic.

If inability of the government to contain transmission of the virus in containment zones is what prompted the administration to go for a total shutdown of five cities, the administration has now tested a perfect recipe to spread Covid-19 outside the containment zones too across these cities. While a cure for Covid-19 is uncertain, the Tamil Nadu formula – if at all there is one – raises doubts as to how serious the dispensation is about prevention. The fallout of crowding and throwing social distancing norms to the wind would be known a fortnight from now, if not earlier.

Intensive lockdown is not a bad idea, but the administration should apply its mind and be prepared with a proper plan before announcing it. It should not be first chaos, then order. Whoever be the architect of this chaos, should own up the mistake.

When it has scores of cases, where health workers have no idea where the patients got infection from, it is highly condemnable that the state government has been on a denial mode for weeks, claiming there is no community transmission in Tamil Nadu. A responsible government will admit the reality and take corrective measures.

BURDENED: A scene at Kotwal Chavadi near Parry’s on Saturday