Noose tightened around unauthorised vendors in sabzi mandi

RAHUL TAWAR | TNN | Apr 29, 2020, 07:49 IST

Ludhiana: In a bid to tighten the noose around unauthorised vendors who were entering the main vegetable and fruit markets of the city, members of the market committee have beefed up security across the main vegetable market on Tuesday. This will also help check the flow of unauthorised visitors.
Earlier, there were several reports coming up before the market committee, following which they found several unauthorised vendors easily managing to get entry for procurement of vegetables for further sale on the retail without adopting the safety measures. But still workers, along with members of the Arhtiya Association, seemed unhappy with the market committee members over their failure to sanitise the of main sabzi mandi on frequent basis. For the past 10 days the santisation of the market has not been carried out by the committee members, they said.
Sources in the health department have said, “Almost 50% of arhtiyas of the main vegetable markets of the city have been quarantined by the district health authorities after they had been found to be in close contact with the district mandi officer who tested positive recently.”
“Though the market committee members are yet to adopt modern safety norms to ensure the safety of visitors as they are not doing regular sanitisation of the mandi, along with screening of the visitors by using thermal scanners, which has raised the safety concerned among the workers and other members,” they said.
“Moreover, the district health department has also taken the sample of more than 50 arhtiyas and workers whose reports turned out be negative. But still there are 100-plus arhtiyas whose samples would be taken in the coming days by the health department for further confirmation whether they are infected with this virus or not,” the sources further said.
An on-the-spot visit to the main market of city (Jalandhar bypass) revealed that market committee members had increased the number of security personal across the sabzi mandi for restricting the flow of unauthorised vendors and penalised those who don’t follow the safety standards and indulge in the practice of procuring vegetables and fruits through wrong entries.
But still there are some workers who don’t follow the social distancing norms during unloading of vegetables from trucks. Although some workers are found wearing masks but they were not wearing gloves during the processes of procurement, including loading goods on small rehris, cleaning them, filling in bags and then loading those bags on vehicles for transportation to warehouses.
President of the New Sabzi Mandi Arhtiyas Association, Ludhiana, Gurkamal Singh, ho is under quarantine after he had met the district mandi officer, said, “Even after hearing the news reports about several vendors getting infected with this virus in different states for not following the safety norms the market committee didn’t bother to demands frequent sanitisation of the main sabzi mandi of city after the daily work gets finished. This should have been done as hundreds of vendors and workers come to the market for procuring vegetables and fruits.”
He added, “If the local administration wants to run the sabzi mandi then they should adopt some advance safety measures without wasting any time.” He further said workers in the mandi were maintaining social distance. However, chairman of the association Raju Malik said, “For the past 10 days, the authorities concerned didn’t do sanitisation of the sabzi mandi and we are demanding that the market committee should get it done on priority basis after the mandi work gets finished in the evening.
The chairman further said, “Although the district administration has tightened the noose around unauthorised vendors by establishing a check around the sabzi mandi, they should also install a health team at the entrance of the main sabzi mandi for screening of visitors for to ensure the safety of workers as hundreds of visitors enter the sabzi mandi without screening.”
“Members of the market committee should step in with some necessary proposals to ensure that trolleys of crops brought by farmers be sanitised at the entrance of the mandi. He added that the market committee had asked arhtiyas to make arrangements for water tank, soap, mask and hand sanitisers for workers.
Speaking on the same lines, some market committee members said, “We have beefed up the security cover around the sabzi mandi for restricting the flow of unauthorised vendors from entering the market premises but the process of thermal screening of visitors and workers would commence soon as a high-level meeting has been held for its early execution.”