Weekend lockdown ensures roads remain deserted in DK

People were sent home by 10 a.m. by which time milk booths and HOPCOM outlets too were made to shut operations

The first day of the weekend lockdown in Dakshina Kannada district on Saturday saw only milk parlours and a couple of HOPCOM outlets, besides healthcare facilities, open and the streets remaining almost deserted. The district administration on Saturday decided to reduce the window to purchase essentials from six hours to three hours on weekdays and impose complete lockdown on weekends exempting only milk and Hopcoms outlets till 9 a.m. Vendors selling other essentials, including grocery, fruits, vegetables, meat, fish etc., were not allowed to open during the weekend lockdown. Yet, some fish vendors brought in their produce on two-wheelers and sold them to customers on the side of roads and near their houses. Fish vendors were compelled to sell the product as it was perishable commodity even as hundreds of fishermen who reached the coast with fresh cash found it difficult to dispose of the catch.