COVID-19 lockdown: Essential goods dwindle as ‘curfew passes’ elude traders

Retailers across the country may soon run out of food grains, medicines and other essential commodities if the government does not streamline availability of ‘curfew passes’, which help traders and transporters to ferry essential goods during the lockdown.

The Confederation of all India Traders (CAIT) has drawn Home Minister Amit Shah’s attention to the issue. In a letter written to him, the CAIT has said the non-availability of passes is affecting the movement of trucks at checkposts, and warned that the wholesalers and distributors had stocks for the next 20 days.

“We would like to inform you that the wholesalers and distributors across the country do have substantial stocks of essential commodities at least for next 15-20 days but the retailers of essential goods may go out of stock in next few days as the stocks of retailers have not been refilled,” the letter written by the representative body of country’s six crore small and medium traders said.

It said the movement of essential goods is getting affected due to non-availability of passes.

But an official at the Centre told DH that advisories have been sent to chief secretaries of each state to streamline the distribution of curfew passes. State governments have been asked to make electronic curfew passes available to transporters for supply of essential commodities during the lockdown.

“Due to some technical glitches, such passes were delayed for a day or two. But now, it has been streamlined,” a Delhi government official said.

But CAIT National Secretary Praveen Khndelwal said the government’s guidelines are being interpreted differently by each state and, therefore, no uniform mechanism has been carved out for seamless distribution of passes.

CAIT, which also represents about 40,000 industrial associations across the country, said that raw material and intermediaries required for production of essential goods, including medicines too were not easily available to manufacturers, which was holding back production.