Patna: Lockdown triggers ‘panic buying’ for essentials in stores

PATNA: Following the district administration’s announcement on Wednesday evening to impose a seven-day lockdown from June 10, residents thronged shops and markets across the city on Thursday to stock up on essentials, especially grocery, fruits and vegetables, medicines and hygiene products.
As per district magistrate (DM) Kumar Ravi’s order, shops dealing in groceries, fruits and vegetables, dairy and milk products and meat will remain open. Fruits, vegetables, meat and fish shops are, however, allowed to open between 6am and 10am and from 4pm to 7pm only. Besides, all kinds of e-commerce and home delivery are allowed.
Local wholesalers, retailers and shop-owners claimed the demand for groceries especially foodgrains and spices witnessed a massive increase just after the district administration issued notification on lockdown. Anand Sharma, an executive at a supermarket in Boring Road said: “Residents are stocking up foodgrains, cooking oils and spices amid concerns over unavailability of food items owing to the lockdown. Apart from these, masks, hand washes and sanitizers are also finding many takers.”
Pintoo Gupta, owner of a local grocery shop in Nahar Khagaul Road said more that 50 people visited his shop for buying groceries on Thursday. “Despite knowing that my shop would remain open during the lockdown as per orders from the district administration, residents in huge numbers visited the shop for buying food items, including flour, rice, biscuits, potato, noodles and garlic. Packaged food items like ‘Poha’, ‘Dahi Vada’, ‘Gulab Jamun’ and ‘Dosa’ were also sold in huge quantities,” he said.
Attributing fear of products going out of stock as the main reason behind people thronging shops, Akash Kumar, owner of a wholesale grocery shop said: “People are actually intimidated by the lockdown that was imposed in March. We had to increase the prices of several items as we were getting them at higher prices too.”
Even online retail food chains are experiencing a massive surge in demand of food items. An executive at an online retain chain said that the number of orders has quadrupled in the last one day. “We are trying to serve as many people as possible,” he said.
Residents, on the other hand, are scared that the lockdown might get extended. “From grocery items to medicines and luxury items to hygiene items, I have stocked every essential commodity for the next two months. I don’t want to face hassles due to the ongoing pandemic,” said Amit Sinha, a resident of Saguna More.
Ayushi Khetan, a resident of Kadamkuan said there are several rumours are making rounds on social media about the lockdown in Patna, which caused panic among the residents. “However we still bought the essential things for next seven days,” she said.
A resident of Lohanipur, Kislay Suman said people had forgotten about the social distancing norms as large crowd was seen inside and outside the shops and vegetable markets.
Md Sonu, a shopkeeper at Sabzibagh said the notification of lockdown triggered panic buying as people are purchasing the items in bulk. “Since Wednesday, we have re-stocked several items almost three times. Although, we have ensured the customers that the essential items are available in good quantity,” he said.