Hyderabad: Ration shops, Meeseva centres turn ticking bombs

Hyderabad: At a time when a snowball effect is being witnessed in positive cases in the city especially the areas under the southern part have appeared sitting on a ticking bomb again with people thronging to fair price shops to get ration and blatantly throwing social distancing norms and Covid-19 appropriate behaviour into the air.

Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts together carry a total number of 1,593 ration shops with the former having 674 shops and the latter holding 919 such facilities. However, out of 919 FP shops located in the Rangareddy district, the Saroornagar circle alone carries a whopping 217 shops spreading under areas like Rajendranagar, LB Nagar, Serilingampally, and Vanasthalipuram.

The city's fringe areas like Hassan Nagar, Indra Nagar, Suleman Nagar, Shastripuram and Gagan Pahad in Rajendranagar and Falaknuma, Mustafa Nagar, Chashma in Bahadurpura are some of the densely populated areas where ration shops were seen overwhelmed with the public gathered there to get monthly ration in a hustle-bustle unmindful of Covid appropriate behaviour.

No proper social distancing arrangements were seen at fair price shops in these areas where people from minor children to old age citizens were seen waiting in queues with just a hair's breadth distance for hours to get their turn. The crowd increased many folds when the relaxation time reached the threshold thereby leading to a messy situation wherein every person tries to unwind from the rush pushing out others unmindful of getting affected with the infection.

Not much different is the situation at Meeseva centres where poor and disabled people are approaching to know whether or not their Aasara pensions have been released from the government. This led to a similar messy state of affairs at Meeseva centres hinting towards another startling catastrophe.

"These scenes of overcrowding at FP shops and Meeseva centres will surely send the wrong message to the government and would play a spoilsport against the measures to arrest the infection thereby hampering the chance of revoking restrictions. Unless the people adopt Covid-19 appropriate behaviour in every aspect, the situation will not change. The less we follow the Covid-19 restrictions the more we are exposed to life threats forcing the government to roll out measures after measures to avoid re-convulsing of the pandemic," said Sai Mallik, Ward Member Budvel, Rajendranagar.

Expressing resentment over the messy situation at Fair Price Shops, the Assistant Civil Supplies Officer Saroornagar Circle, Bala Saroja said, "We are unable to control the wayward public at Fair Price Shops as additional rice distribution, announced by the government made people unnerved and made them rush towards FP shops in myriad to get the excess amount of rice all by throwing social distancing rules into the air."

"Taking help from police can't help us to ensure adherence to Covid-19 appropriate behaviour," she said adding that "When police itself facing great difficulty to ensuring people follow Covid-19 guidelines on roads and localities how come the FP agents of FPS with just one assistant each to disburse grains can control the wayward people," she quipped.