Smooth supplies of food demanded

LAHORE:Concerted efforts should be made to ensure smooth food supplies during lockdown due to potential spread of Coronavirus, market insiders stressed here Sunday.

Following growing concern about spread of deadly Coronavirus, mechanism for lockdown should be planned in a way that food supplies to market across the country remain uninterrupted on daily basis.

Precautions in this regard should be given utmost importance as federal and provincial governments are taking all preventive measures to avoid spread of the virus, to keep people safe. Amid this crisis, the food and beverage industry is cautious over steps related to lockdown by the government. Keeping in view such restrictions in the backdrop, market insiders recommended that movement of people to food manufacturing facilities, transport of raw materials such as milk, grains, packaging, fuel etc should be allowed without any hurdle.

Similarly, produced supplies to distributions and retail stores should remain open and free of any constraints. This will help the food industry to make round-the-clock safe food supplies possible so that masses can get essential items on store shelves during the ongoing crisis.

They were of the view that trust should be built among the masses about unhindered food supplies so that availability of these items remains smooth and panic buying could be stopped. Administrative measures in this regard would lead to controlling prices of essential items as well.

Moreover, systematic measures for food supplies would ultimately make sure that food items continue to be available with the advent of holy month of Ramazan after about a month. Anti-encroachment drive: The Metropolitan Corporation Lahore (MCL) in its ongoing anti-encroachment drive on Saturday demolished various illegal structures.

Headed by Metropolitan Officer (Regulation) Zubair Ahmed Wattoo, the MCL anti-encroachment squad also imposed a total fine of Rs 11,400 on various shopkeepers and confiscated four truckloads of encroachment material, said an MCL spokesman.

The MCL squads of Ganj Bakhsh zone, Nashtar zone, Gulberg zone, Allama Iqbal zone, Samnabad zone and Ravi zone also took into custody different things of encroachers in the Misri Shah area, Samnabad, Taj Bagh, Canal Road and Daroghawala. During the operation, the MCL cleared structures, including sheds, grills, billboards, hoardings, makeshift shops alongside the roads besides confiscating material of encroachers.