Face mask, hand sanitiser prices double in two days

Sameer Singh

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 6

Amid Covid-19 scare, the prices of face masks and hand sanitisers have skyrocketed in the past three days. With people resorting to panic buying, making the most of the situation, retail medical store owners are minting money by selling these items at exorbitant prices.

The demand has spiked all of a sudden, affecting the supply. Several medicine wholesalers and retail medical stores have run out of stock. Talking to The Tribune, several retail chemist shop owners in Bathinda said the demand for hand sanitisers and face masks had risen due to which many stores had run out of stock.

Owner of Rajeev Pharmacy, a medicine wholesaler, said, “Since last evening, my phone has been ringing and flooded with messages from retailers in Punjab, who want to place orders for sanitisers. Some placed an order for 1,500 to 4,000 hand sanitisers. Unfortunately, upon contacting my clients in Delhi, Ludhiana and Uttar Pradesh, I could procure some hundred sanitisers, which were sold to retailers by afternoon. I needed at least 15,000 sanitiser bottles to meet the sudden spike in the demand.”

With barely any check on arbitrary charging of rates by the authorities, medical store owners have been selling face masks for Rs 20 to Rs 40, which earlier cost Rs 2.5 to Rs 5 a piece. Similarly, the rates of filtered face masks have almost doubled overnight and while a single mask earlier cost between Rs 150 and Rs 250, it’s now being sold for Rs 450.

On a reality check conducted by \The Tribune\ team at Hospital Bazaar (hub of chemist shops in the city) of Bathinda, a retail shop owner said, “Since mask prices have increased overnight and we are not getting supply of the same, a filtered mask which was earlier sold for Rs 250, will now be sold for Rs 450, for which a buyer has to place an order in advance as we are already short of stock.”

The retailers denied providing bills against the purchase of masks. With no rates mentioned on masks, the retailers have been selling them at exorbitant prices, a few of them even charged Rs 40 for a mask. “There are wholesalers, who have denied selling masks and instead opted for hoarding, so that they can sell it later when prices notch up further in the coming days,” said a retailer in Hospital Bazaar.

Sources in the Bathinda Chemist Association said since the fear of Covid had gripped the nation, black-marketers had become active and started to hoard items which were high in demand to squeeze the supply chain and indulge in price gouging or overcharge later.

As people have found themselves pushed into the throes of panic buying and with sanitisers and face masks vanishing from the shelves of medical stores, black-marketers have sensed a lucrative opportunity.

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