Local grocery shop owners are facing a problems to meet consumers demand as supply of several essential things are running low due to ongoing lockdown announced by the Government.
The shop owners are saying that it is tough time to fulfill consumers’ demand as most of the grocery shop items are running short of supply due scarcity of transportation system and other reasons like irregular schedule of wholesale markets.
The Government had announced that all supermarkets would be closed during lockdown to create congestion free environment, which will help to fight against spread of Corona virus.
Though Ranchi District Administration assured the people that there will not be scarcity of essential commodities in the market due to lockdown but due to closure of supermarkets like Big Bazar, Reliance Smart and others, the people of cities like Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Bokaro and Hazaribagh are become dependent on local grocery shops as a large number of people living in these cities were buying their grocery items from these supermarkets.
Pandra Krisi Bazar Samiti is one of the biggest wholesale markets of the State for grocery items and food grains but at present it is witnessing less footfalls than before announcement of lockdown.
A local grocery shop owner at Gandhinagar of Kanke Road, Vinod Gupta said that there is huge scarcity of grocery items in the wholesale market due to scarcity of supply. "Due to closure of supermarkets now most of the customers are coming at local grocery shops but we are not able to meet their demand due to scarcity of the items. The Government has provided online facility system for those consumers who used to buy from supermarkets," he added.
"Scarcity of transportation have caused the supply bottleneck of grocery items and another big reason is irregular functioning of wholesale market as most of the grocery items wholesalers are not opening their shops as earlier," said Gupta.
A wholesaler at Pandra Krishi Bazar Samiti, Vinay Aggarwal said that there is scarcity of food grains and other grocery items in the wholesale market due to lack of transportation.
"The transporters also want to be safe from the epidemic so in this period they are not running their trucks. The epidemic also created panic among wholesalers as many of them are not opening their shops due to fear", he added.