Avoid vehicles and travel to stores on foot, Guwahati traffic police urges citizens

Guwahati: After the Assam Government eased the lockdown restrictions to allow Guwahati citizens to once again stock up on essentials, Guwahati's Traffic Police has urged the citizens of Guwahati to move to their nearest grocery stores on foot.

"Advisory: In view of the opening of grocery shops from tomorrow all are requested to go their nearest shops on foot and not use motor vehicles for the purpose," a tweet sent out from the official twitter handle of the Guwahati Traffic Police read.

Yesterday, after issuing the new orders, Assam Chief Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna had tweeted, "All grocery shops are allowed for the reason that people do not go out of their areas. They must use neighborhood grocery shops only. We are allowing grocery shops but not allowing people to go out in cars without passes!"

As per the revised set of guidelines, the new set of rules in Guwahati for the remainder of the lockdown period are as follows: All standalone grocery shops will be allowed to operate between 11 am and 4 pm from Monday to Friday. To minimize the possibility of an outbreak, all shopkeepers and customers shall have to wear masks, hand gloves, and maintain social distancing.

The Chief Secretary directed the maintenance of price line and the prevention of artificial shortage will be the responsibility of shopkeepers and the Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs department. The whole sellers of the grocery items will be allowed to replenish stocks of the retailers on June 5 and July 7 between 12 noon and 6 pm. The house-to-house sale of fruits, vegetables, etc will be allowed on July 6 (Monday) and July 8 (Wednesday).

At the same time, the Chief Secretary has said that the roadside vending of fruits, vegetables, and other items, is strictly forbidden. All the other restrictions, as informed earlier, shall remain in place, the Chief Secretary's new notice stated. It needs mention here that Guwahati city -- the largest urban area in Northeast India -- has been placed under lockdown by the Government of Assam owing to the massive surge of COVID-19 cases, many of which are without travel history.

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