Residents start hoarding ration fearing shutdown

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 18

As fears over Covid spread continue to rise, city residents are hitting the grocery stores to stock up on essentials commodities.

A provisional store owner at Sector 27 said, “People are hoarding rations now at their homes as they fear lockdown due to coronavirus. The weekly stock of wheat bags was finished in just three hours at our shop.”

Meenu, a resident of Sector 30 said, “We have purchased monthly rations in the first week of March, but now we have decided to stock some ration for the next month as we want to minimise our hassles.”

“Imagine a situation like Italy here. We would be locked in our homes starved to death. We want to take all possible measures to avoid last-minute crisis,” said Neetu of Sector 27.

A Sector 30 based provisional store owner said, “Customers are buying two packs instead of one. The commonly sold items are dal, wheat, rice and sugar. There is a visible panic among the city residents as well with Covid cases spiralling each day in our country.”

“We have purchased non-perishable items of two weeks just in case the situation is going to take too long”, said another resident, Gurmeet Kaur of Sector 48.