Wholesale market shut, retailers face drug shortage
LUCK NOW: With around 60% of the wholesale medicine market in Aminabad shut down due to coronavirus scare, retail medical stores across the city have started facing shortage of medicines.
After the nationwide lockdown, around 3,000 shops in the old medicine and new medicine markets in Aminabad have shut down due to various reasons.
These two wholesale medicine markets are the lifeline for the city’s retailers.
LUCKNOW: With around 60% of the wholesale medicine market in Aminabad shut down due to coronavirus scare, retail medical stores across the city have started facing shortage of medicines.
After the nationwide lockdown, around 3,000 shops in the old medicine and new medicine markets in Aminabad have shut down due to various reasons.
These two wholesale medicine markets are the lifeline for the city’s retailers.
After the nationwide lockdown from midnight of March 23 to check spread of Sars-Cov-2, most labourers in the two wholesale medicine markets have left for their home districts.
In local parlance, these labourers are known as palledars (porters) whose job is to ferry big medicine boxes from one shop to another and carry huge medicine cartons from multi-story complexes in the medicine market to the ground floor.
These porters also unload medicines from trucks coming from pharmaceutical companies from Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. After unloading, they take these stocks to godown of wholesale medicine traders in Aminabad. Most of these porters are from adjoining districts, including Bahraich, Gonda, Faizabad, Barabanki, Sultanpur and Sitapur. A number of labourers are also from Bihar. Almost all have now left for their home districts after the lock-down.
“In the absence of porters, all commercial activity has come to a standstill in the wholesale medicine market,” said Puneet Sharma of Lucknow Drug and Chemical Association.
Another reason is lack of transportation.
“Transportation is another lifeline of wholesale medicine market. Medicines are supplied across the state from this market. This transportation is through pickup vans, trucks and in some cases through buses. After the lockdown, all these modes of transport have come to a grinding halt,” said Anil Upadhyay, general secretary, UP Surgical Association.
“Supply of medicines in small towns across the state is from wholesale medicine market in Aminabad. This supply is badly affected. If the problems are not addressed, then small towns will soon face shortage of medicines,” Upadhyay added.
In such a scenario, traders in the wholesale medicine market have no option but to shut down their establishments. Due to social distancing norms at work place to check spread of coronavirus, traders in the wholesale medicine market have also curtailed their staff.
Against this backdrop, around 3,800 retail medical stores across the city have started facing shortage of medicine stocks.
“As most of the shops in the wholesale medicine market are shut down, we have started facing shortage of drugs, sanitizers, gloves, face masks and other items (medical supplies),” said Vinay Shukla, vice president, Lucknow Chemist Association.
“Even stocks of insulin, diapers and baby foods are depleting fast as there is no supply from wholesale medicine market,” added Shukla.
“If the wholesale medicine market remains shut like this, the situation will become grim in coming days,” Shukla asserted.
“With the wholesale medicine market almost shut down, there is no supply of medicines at retail stores,” said proprietor of a medical store in Qaiserbagh, requesting anonymity.
To note, like food, supply of medicines is also essential.
Meanwhile, a large number of medicine shops, both wholesale and retail, could not open during the day as the owners faced problems in reaching their establishments. “About 20,000 owners and staff are engaged to run 500 wholesale and over 4000 retail medical stores but hardly 100 wholesale and about 700 retail stores opened on Thursday,” said Suresh Kumar, office -bearer of the Chemist And Druggist Federation, Uttar Pradesh (CDFUP).
The general secretary of CDFUP has written a letter to the drug controller UP to facilitate medical shop owners in smoothly running the establishments as it directly involves peoples’ health. “Police personnel on the road are stopping us. Some reached at 12 instead of the routine 10 am and many had to return. If this situation continues many will opt not to open shops till the lock-down is in place,” said Kumar.