Several Indian online grocery retailers have temporarily suspended their services following the total lockdown announced for India by PM Modi starting March 25
After the Prime Minister of India – Narendra Modi announced 21 days of lockdown starting from today, i.e., March 25, 2020, several online grocery retailers like Big Basket, Grofers and Starquik, have temporarily suspended their services.
The lockdown which is necessary to contain the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) resulted in people standing in long queues outside local kirana shops. With people indulging into panic buying, a large section of society has been deprived of the essentials.
A user posted a picture of Kandivali, Mumbai located D-Mart which had a long queue.
Picture of Kandivali, Mumbai D'mart. Please don't panic, Stay Safe at Home. Request to government for resuming Grofer and Big Basket Services #NarendraModi #PrimeMinister pic.twitter.com/xB2TUdWiVS
— Suresh Kumar Bhutani (@skbhutani1) March 24, 2020
A message on the Big Basket website read, “We’ll be back soon! We are currently experiencing unprecedented demand. In light of this, we are restricting access to our website to existing customers only. Please try again in a few hours.”
Grofer’s website displayed a similar message, “We’ll be back soon! Please click below to get notified when we start accepting more orders.”
The official twitter handle of Big Basket read, “We regret the inconvenience caused, we are not operational due to restrictions imposed by local authorities on movement of goods in spite of clear guidelines provided by central authorities to enable essential services. We are working with the authorities to be back soon.”
We regret the inconvenience caused, we are not operational due to restrictions imposed by local authorities on movement of goods in spite of clear guidelines provided by central authorities to enable essential services. We are working with the authorities to be back soon.
— bigbasket (@bigbasket_com) March 25, 2020
Big Basket, Grofers and Amazon have been forced to cancel orders over the past few days due to shortage of supply and on account of manhandling by cops. Customers have been flooding the social media with their complaints.
While Amazon India has announced that it will halt orders for non-essential products to prioritize customers’ urgent needs and will focus solely on supplying the essential products, Flipkart has completely suspended all its services till further notice.
A Hyderabad based user mentioned on twitter that Big Basket replied to her that Administration is not allowing Big Basket’s delivery boys to move. . READ THE THREAD HERE.
Another user made the same complain sharing the screenshot of message received from Big Basket. READ THE THREAD HERE
However, the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Grofers – Albinder Dhindsa said that except hand sanitizers and handwash, Grofers has enough stock of essentials and groceries. He also said that Grofers is working on clearing the backlog of orders.
Speaking on the occasion, he said, “We plan to deliver 24/7 to clear the backlog. We are partnering with the local administration to ensure that the consumers get their deliveries at the earliest.”
Besides, the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution – Ram Vilas Paswan said that the Government is keeping a track on the availability of all essential items in the market and people should not panic.
He said, “We are in constant touch with state governments to ensure that there is no shortage of any essential items. Traders and manufacturers should not indulge in hoarding and black marketing during these testing times,”
He also said, “We are talking to district administrations for organising home deliveries of essential items. District administration of various states are working on a model.”
Giving figures, he clearly said that as on April 1, 2020, India needs 7.46 million tonnes of wheat and 13.58 million tonnes of rice for ration shops. But there are 64.6 million tonnes of food grains available. The Centre has allowed States to lift 3 months of ration in advance on credit from the Food Corporation (FCI) warehouses, to help them distribute food grains free of cost to the poor and vulnerable sections of the society.
