CCP halts delivery of essentials as city shops stock up

Panaji: The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) has discontinued its service of delivering essential commodities as operations of supermarkets and large grocery shops in the city have normalised.

The CCP had launched the service to help people in getting their supplies of essentials without much hassle in the wake of the lockdown restrictions.

During the earlier days of the lockdown, people had gone into a panic mode with scarcity of essential commodities arising given the fact that there were restrictions on transportation.

 “Since supermarkets like Sahakar Bhandar, Vishal mart and other shops have opened and essential commodities are available in the city as well surrounding villages, we have decided to discontinue the delivery service started by the CCP,” stated mayor Uday Madkaikar.

However, Madkaikar said that the CCP will be at the service of the people in times of any emergency.

 “We had taken up the task of supplying essential commodities to the people in view of sudden imposition of janata curfew followed by complete lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak. People especially the senior citizens, physically challenged and the needy were in distress as they were not in position to make arrangement of their daily essentials during the early phase of the lockdown as the police were strict in preventing movement of the citizens outdoors,” he said.

Hence, with the help of MLA Atanasio Monseratte and along with CCP commissioner Sanjit Rodrigues and deputy mayor Wasant Agshikar, the initiative was launched to supply essential commodities at no-loss, no-profit basis to the people from Ribandar, Miramar and Dona Paula, he said.

“We catered to around 5200 households in just 10 days and even during nighttime we reached out to the needy as NGOs, well-wishers, Rotary Riveira and others rendered their invaluable help in the form of vehicles and manpower,” he stated.

He said that “now the focus will be in cleaning drainages and gutters and pruning of branches.”