Sections of deserted markets across the country have started showing sign of commodity hoarding at one level or the other, with the Capital City of the State being no different. However, food and civil supplies officials have claimed to have close eyes on commodity hoarders.
“Though the situation you are talking is little farfetched, our machinery is completely ready to take hoarders on whenever and wherever they appear. City Public Distribution System (PDS) shops have been catering to almost 80 per cent of the population. And we strongly believe that there has been no hoarding at least as of now,” said Ranchi Food Supplies Officer Narendra Gupta.
However, markets and small to mid-sized commodity shops across the city have started sensing some kind of hoarding or the other. “We are going to face some supply related issues in a week or so. Suppliers of rice, wheat, pulses and other commodities who had been easily making their stuff available for us either against credit or cash have completely stopped supplies. They are not willing to give it on credit in changed circumstances like this, nor they are accepting a cheque,” said a mid-sized grocery shop owner, having one famous kirana shop in Kali Tower at lalpur.
He added that the issue was largely with those stores which accepted electronic money from their customers, but whose suppliers were not accepting electronic money. “I don’t want to go how they were managing so far and how they would manage now, but the fact is that we were doing all legitimate business only to have almost no stock in another 3-4 days,” he said.
Similar were the views of a number of other shop owners at HB Road to Bariatu and Ratu Road to Kanke Road. Most of them said that their suppliers had hold back the stock with them by the time the market saw a fresh round of sufficient liquidity. A Happy Deal Store owner at HB Road said that till his supplier was having faith on him, he was getting commodities on credit. But it was not a long-lasting situation.
Even Gupta agreed upon such scenario ultimately resulting in shortage of commodities at one corner of the city making way for hoarding. “However, this is not the situation so far, that’s why we have not come out with any plan by now,” said Gupta.