Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had given three days for Punekars to prepare themselves for the 10-day strict lockdown starting from Tuesday (July 14), but along with grocery and vegetables, citizens have preferred to stock up noodles and pani puri packets. These two 'essential items' have run out of stock from most shops in the city.

As compared to Saturday and Sunday, crowd outside the shops and markets was less on Monday. With just a few hours left for the strict lockdown to start, Punekars are all set to work from home. Not just work, many citizens did make plans to make this lockdown bearable as compared to the previous ones by stocking all their favourite snacks.

Shopkeepers said, "On Saturday and Sunday itself many citizens have taken eight to ten packets of noodles, biscuits, panipuri and material required for preparing cakes and other snacks. As a result, the stock was sold out by Sunday evening. Many customers had to return empty-handed, while some preferred to go search in distant parts of the city."

Acting on instructions of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, the local administration had announced the lockdown on Friday (July 10). Just after the announcement, queues were seen outside grocery, vegetable and meat shops as these shops will also be closed for the first five days of the strict lockdown. These shops will be allowed to open in a restricted manner from the sixth day onward. Liquor shops will remain close throughout the 10 days and long queues were spotted outside several outlets in different parts of the city.

Social distancing norms were flouted by citizens while purchasing essential items and the civic and police officials also seemed not keen to enforce the norms. Taking advantage of the situation, most vegetable vendors hiked prices of vegetables and fruits. Punekars had no other choice but to purchase these veggies and fruits at an exorbitant rate.