Bengaluru, July 14: Ahead of the week-long lockdown in Bengaluru starting from Tuesday night, around 35,000 people have left the city and grocery stores and liquor shops are witnessing a rush with customers thronging to stock up on for the shutdown.
According to transport department officials, labourers from other parts of the state migrated in good numbers from Bengaluru ahead of the lockdown fearing that they would have to face similar challenges as they had to confront during the previous shuttering.
"Yesterday 35,000 passengers left Bengaluru. The number is big given the fact that we are allowing a limited number of passengers in the buses to maintain social distancing," a KSRTC official said.
Tipplers made a beeline for liquor shops and a senior State Excise official said liquor worth Rs 230 crore was sold on Monday alone.
"There was apparently a mad rush yesterday.India Made Foreign Liquor worth Rs 215.55 crore and 14.83 crore worth beer was sold...," the officer said.
In view of the rising coronavirus cases in the city at an alarming proportion, the government decided to impose lockdown from Tuesday 8 pm till 5 am on July 22.
Later, Dharwad and Dakshina Kannada districts too decided to impose a lockdown for nine days and seven days respectively from Wednesday.
"For the past two days there is an unusual rush of customers in our store," an executive of the Metro Cash and Carry said.
According to him, people are buying grocery items and vegetables with long shelf life such as onion, potato, radish, carrot and beetroot.
A salesperson at the Star Bazaar too said people were thronging the store for the past two to three days.
During the Sunday curfew, Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai said the week-long lockdown will be stringent one and government has made all arrangements to address all concerns ahead of the shutdown.
As many as 19,702 people in Bengaluru have tested positive, of which there are 15,052 active cases, while 4,328 have been discharged.
The number of fatalities as of Monday is 321.
Across Karnataka, 41,581 people have tested positive for coronavirus including 24,572 active cases, 16,248 discharges and 757 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic in the state.
Comments
We want to know how many more charges will be put on Yasin bhatkal. We are hearing new charges on him on daily basis. Why dont Govt close the issue by givng him death penalty if he is so dangerous to indian security. We want same thing with other terrorists also who are arrested with reference to Malegaon, Ajmer and Hyderabad bomb blasts. How about the mass murderers in Gujarat, Muzaffarnagar etc. etc.
Add new comment