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Stay indoors, essentials will reach you: Ministers
Ministers flagged off mobile vegetable and groceries sales via mini vans across the state on Monday to handle the intensified lockdown this week.
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Thiruchirapalli
In Tiruchy as many as 232 vehicles, including 152 by the horticulture department would sell essential items including vegetables at door steps. Minister KN Nehru after flagging off the vehicles in Tiruchy on Monday appealed to the people to stay indoors.
He urged the people as well as the traders to wear masks, use sanitisers and ensure social distance during sale of fruits and vegetables. At the same time, the sales would be made between 6 am and 12 noon and each vehicle would have an equipment for thermal scanning. “If any vehicles found to be violating the norms, the permission to that particular vehicle would be suspended”, warned Nehru.
In Coimbatore, 50 vehicles had set out on Monday to sell vegetables at doorstep during the intensified lock down for a week. The mobile vegetable sales, organised jointly by the Corporation, Horticulture and Agriculture Department has been planned to cover all 100 wards in the Corporation limits. The sale of vegetables through vehicles was flagged off by Minister for Food and Civil Supplies R Sakkarapani.
Minister for Forests K Ramachandran said that the Corporation had decided to authorise 500 more vehicles to increase the reach. In Tirupur, Minister for Information and Publicity MP Swaminathan flagged off the sale of vegetables through vehicles at BDO Colony on Mangalam Road.
In fact, Salem had set a precedent to other districts to follow through sale of vegetables by vehicles while ordering closure of markets since May 20.
40 in place of four: Crowd of veggie vans surprise Vellore
Corporation officials were overwhelmed by the response to mobile vegetable sales drive as nearly 40 vehicles turned up at a ward in Sathuvachary as against the 4 allotted to it.
The move to provide essentials at the doorsteps of consumers from Monday due to the intense lockdown was initially planned to use 113 mini lorries in Vellore, 46 in Gudiyattam and Pernambut and 34 vehicles in Pallikonda, Tiruvalam, Pennathur and Odugathur town panchayats. The rural areas were to be covered by 244 vehicles and 90 pushcarts were also included in it.
But, on Monday nearly 40 vehicles turned up at a ward in Sathuvachary as against the 4 allotted to it. Officials were nonplussed at how to respond to the situation as rules stipulated that they could sell only at rates fixed by the government and that all supplies should be loaded into vehicles before 9 am from the Mango mandi on the old Bengaluru Road.
An official said, “we were unable to limit the vehicles as all participants narrated various tales of woe revealing it as the only way they could earn a living as their regular income had gone for a toss due to the pandemic.”
He added, “We have told them to follow government pricing. But, if we get complaints of consumers being charged excess we will definitely act.” Vellore Collector (in-charge) J Parthiban and MLA P Kathikeyan flagged off a token number of vehicles from the Collectorate. They were selling 11 vegetables, curry leaves and coriander. But, local women complained that ginger was being left out from the sales. When asked officials said they would set right the lapse on Tuesday.
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