Losses hurting more than Covid, say Chickpet traders

Pandemic pain

The lockdown of Chickpet ward has turned into a battleground between officials trying to control a Covid-19 outbreak and traders arguing that the historic market area is being unfairly closed down.

Traders said they are calling on the government to reopen the ward for business from Monday, though the number of cases have spiked since the lockdown.

The move is prompted by severe financial losses, explained D Kanthilal Dhanraj, president of the Electrical Merchants Association, which was one of two trade associations which had originally backed a lockdown on June 22, as the number of infections rose.

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“The ward is losing an estimated Rs 100 crore a day. We thought we could control the outbreak but we cannot. We must resume commerce and take our chances,” he said.

Sajjan Raj Mehta, joint secretary of the Jain International Trade organisation concurred. “There are claims that Chickpet is responsible for the major surge in Covid-19 cases in the city, but we have been under lockdown for 16 days. So, where is the question of the spread?” he asked.

But this is exactly what is happening in this tightly packed ward of 50,000 people, explained Leela Shivakumar, corporator. “The situation is worse than ever. Since the imposition of the lockdown, there have been at least 162 confirmed cases.”

Chickpet has become a textbook case of lockdown failure, the corporator admitted, explaining that in dense neighborhoods and heavily populated homes, the disease was rife. The BBMP missed a window to contain the crisis.