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Beijing, Feb 24: The lockdown of Guo Jing's neighbourhood in Wuhan -- the city at the heart of China's new coronavirus epidemic -- came suddenly and without warning.

Unable to go out, the 29-year-old is now sealed inside her compound where she has to depend on online group-buying services to get food.

"Living for at least another month isn't an issue," Guo told news agency, explaining that she had her own stash of pickled vegetables and salted eggs.

But what scares her most is the lack of control -- first, the entire city was sealed off, and then residents were limited to exiting their compound once every three days.

Now even that has been taken away.

Guo is among some 11 million residents in Wuhan, a city in central Hubei province that has been under effective quarantine since January 23 as Chinese authorities race to contain the epidemic.

Since then, its people have faced a number of tightening controls over daily life as the death toll from the virus swelled to over 2,500 in China alone.

But the new rules this month barring residents from leaving their neighbourhoods are the most restrictive yet -- and for some, threaten their livelihoods.

"I still don't know where to buy things once we've finished eating what we have at home," said Pan Hongsheng, who lives with his wife and two children.

Some neighbourhoods have organised group-buying services, where supermarkets deliver orders in bulk.

But in Pan's community, "no one cares".

"The three-year-old doesn't even have any milk powder left," Pan told news agency, adding that he has been unable to send medicine to his in-laws -- both in their eighties -- as they live in a different area.

"I feel like a refugee."

The "closed management of neighbourhoods is bound to bring some inconvenience to the lives of the people", Qian Yuankun, vice secretary of Hubei's Communist Party committee, said at a press briefing last week.

Authorities on Monday allowed healthy non-residents of the city to leave if they never had contact with patients, but restrictions remained on those who live in Wuhan.

Demand for group-buying food delivery services has rocketed with the new restrictions, with supermarkets and neighbourhood committees scrambling to fill orders.

Most group-buying services operate through Chinese messaging app WeChat, which has ad-hoc chat groups for meat, vegetables, milk -- even "hot dry noodles", a famous Wuhan dish.

More sophisticated shops and compounds have their own mini-app inside WeChat, where residents can choose packages priced by weight before orders are sent in bulk to grocery stores.

In Guo's neighbourhood, for instance, a 6.5-kilogramme (14.3-pound) set of five vegetables, including potatoes and baby cabbage, costs 50 yuan ($7.11).

"You have no way to choose what you like to eat," Guo said. "You cannot have personal preferences anymore."

The group-buying model is also more difficult for smaller communities to adopt, as supermarkets have minimum order requirements for delivery.

"To be honest, there's nothing we can do," said Yang Nan, manager of Lao Cun Zhang supermarket, which requires a minimum of 30 orders.

"We only have four cars," she said, explaining that the store did not have the staff to handle smaller orders.

Another supermarket told AFP it capped its daily delivery load to 1,000 orders per day.

"Hiring staff is difficult," said Wang Xiuwen, who works at the store's logistics division, adding that they are wary about hiring too many outsiders for fear of infection.

Closing off communities has split the city into silos, with different neighbourhoods rolling out controls of varying intensity.

In some compounds, residents have easier access to food -- albeit a smaller selection than normal -- and one woman said her family pays delivery drivers to run grocery errands.

Her compound has not been sealed off either, the 24-year-old told AFP under condition of anonymity, though they are limited to one person leaving at a time.

Some districts have implemented their own rules, such as prohibiting supermarkets from selling to individuals, forcing neighbourhoods to buy in bulk or not at all.

"In the neighbourhood where I live, the reality is really terrible," said David Dai, who is based on the outskirts of Wuhan.

Though his apartment complex has organised group-buying, Dai said residents were unhappy with price and quality.

"A lot of tomatoes, a lot of onions -- they were already rotten," he told , estimating over a third of the food had to be thrown away.

His family must "totally depend" on themselves, added the 49-year-old, who has resorted to saving and drying turnip skins to add nutrients to future meals.

The uncertainty of not knowing when the controls will be lifted is also frustrating, said Ma Chen, a man in his 30s who lives alone.

"I have no way of knowing how much (food) I should buy."

New Delhi, June 8: Only 20.26 lakh migrant workers of the targeted 8 crore such labourers have received free food grains in May and June (2020), according to data released by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

In the middle of May, as part of the Rs 20 lakh crore Atma Nirbhar Bharat package, the Modi government had announced that migrant labourers who are not covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) or any state-run PDS scheme, will receive free food grains for two months.

"Non-card holders shall be given 5 kg wheat or rice per person and 1 kg chana per family per month for the next 2 months. About 8 crore migrants will benefit from this scheme that will cost the government Rs 3500 crore,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said at a press conference following PM Modi’s announcement.

But the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said on Sunday, "The states and UTs have lifted 4.42 LMT (lakh metric tonne) of food grains and distributed 10,131 MT of it to 20.26 lakh beneficiaries."

It added, "The Government of India also approved 39,000 MT pulses for 1.96 crore migrant families. Around 28,306 MT gram/dal have been dispatched to the states and UTs. A total 15,413 MT gram have been lifted by various states and UTs". The state governments, the ministry added, had distributed only 631MT (metric tonnes) of gram so far.

Because of the constant movement of migrant workers, the Centre had said that the states will be responsible for identifying the migrants and subsequent food distribution.

The Centre claims it is spending approximately Rs 3,109 crore for food grains and Rs 280 crores for grams/chana under this package.

New Delhi, Apr 19: The government on Sunday prohibited the sale of non-essential items through e-commerce platforms during the ongoing lockdown, four days after allowing such companies to sale mobile phones, refrigerators and ready-made garments.

Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla issued an order excluding the non-essential items from sale by the e-commerce companies from the consolidated revised guidelines, which listed the exemption given to the services and people from the purview of the lockdown.

The order said the following clause "E-commerce companies. Vehicles used by e-commerce operators will be allowed to ply with necessary permissions" is excluded from the guidelines.

The previous order had said such items were allowed for sale through e-commerce platforms from April 20.

However, the reason for reversing the order is not known immediately.