Kolkata: Several ration shops in Bankura district may emerge as a model of social distancing which the state administration is trying to promote in in shops and markets to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
These shops are using PVC pipes and tin sheds for delivering rice and wheat directly into the bags of the buyers and are thus avoiding any contact with the buyer during the delivery process.
"We have 1,204 ration shops in Bankura district. The shops in the Khatra sub-division have already implemented this innovative technique of social distancing. I have circulated these pictures on WhatsApp and have urged the BDOs to ask the dealers to adopt similar method of social distancing to avoid contact between the buyer and the seller," said Arun Prasad, District Magistrate (DM) Bankura.
The ration shops are open seven days a week from 8 to 12 noon and from 4 to 8 pm. Mask and sanitisers and other necessary protective equipment have already been provided to the ration shops. Several shops in the district have drawn circles at a distance where people can stand maintaining a safe distance.
Prasad has also asked his concerned officials to shift temporary markets to open fields so that distancing can be maintained while buying and selling of vegetables, fish and meat. In some areas, the shift has already been effected and Bishnupur block needs special mention in this.
Nine isolation centres have been set up at different health establishments in the district where 120 patients can stay. More than 1,000 quarantine facilities have been developed with every single block in the district having this capacity.
The production of vegetables in the district has also been reasonably good which is excess in demand of the domestic market. "The export of vegetables to neighbouring states like Bihar, Jharkhand has stopped due to the lockdown. So we are sending it to the Kolkata markets. We are also supplying to the Sufal Bangla outlets. A senior official of the Horticulture department is monitoring the supply to Kolkata," said Subhasis Batabyal, Vice President of West Bengal Agro Industries Corporation.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has instructed that there should not be any scarcity in availability and supply of essential items and vegetable is one of them. "We have strengthened our supply chain and are supplying it to different markets. The police administration is also procuring potatoes to feed the labourers from other districts and neighbouring states like Bihar who are stuck here due to lockdown. We are giving free supply as per requisitions by the police," said Batabyal, who is also the Trinamool Congress president of the district.