RAJSHAHI, May 3, 2020 (BSS) – Mobile vegetable shopping has been gaining popularity among the households amidst the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic for the last couple of weeks in the city.
District administration has imposed restrictions on coming out of homes and armed forces and all other law enforcing agencies are working to enforce social distancing to combat coronavirus spread.
In this troubled situation, the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) has been reaching green vegetables towards doorsteps of the house-confined city dwellers with pickup vans at fair price over the past one month.
In the initial stage, the DAE had taken initiative to supply vegetables in only Rajarhata and Kadirgonj areas. After getting massive response from the households, the venture has been expanded to most of the city areas at present.
DAE Deputy Director Shamsul Haque said the mobile vegetable marketing has been launched to discourage the people to kitchen markets to stem the coronavirus spread. District administration is extending support to this initiative aimed at meeting people’s demand in the wake of home-isolation conditions caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation.
The DAE officials are vending around 300 kilograms of fresh vegetables through pickup vans setting up at various locations every day on an average amidst massive response from the city dwellers.
“We will continue the programme to prevent contagion of the virus discouraging the city people to go to the markets,” said Shamsul Haque.
The vegetables were sold within a very short time as people were very much interested to purchase those at their doorsteps at a fair price on the first day.
He also said many of the shops remained closed and many people remained at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. “We have started the venture to cope up with the troubled situation,” he said, adding that steps will be taken to furthermore expand the process within the near future.
Rajshahi Deputy Commissioner Hamidul Haque said various measures were taken to discourage the people not to go out of home to strengthen the fight against the coronavirus spread and the mobile vegetable marking is one of the steps.
All concerned officials including the law-enforcing agencies are working relentlessly to tighten the restrictions to protect the public in general from infection of the virus, he added.