Traders in the national Capital are facing huge crunch of staff and transport facility that has stalled movement of essential commodities. Also, they have been facing much difficulty in obtaining curfew passes.

Local administration, despite clear guidelines issued by Union Government, are not allowing movement of vegetables and other essential items even after managing passes that has further escalated the issue, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said on Friday.

The traders’ body has also demanded to authorise CAIT or All India Transport Welfare Association (AITWA) to issue passes to their constituents after due diligence and the local authorities should be directed not to stop movement of anyone having the said passes.

It will ensure immediate movement of essential goods from wholesalers to retailers in all cases i.e. intra-city, inter-city and inter-state movements, the traders’ body said in a statement, adding that the Government should carve out a mechanism to issue necessary passes without any delay to ensure availability of goods in market.

“So far the e-passes system has not worked effectively as it takes 3 to 4 days to get passes and in several cases, the passes are denied without any reason,” it added.

BC Bhartia, national president and Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general of CAIT said on the one side transport facility is not available due to non availability of drivers as large number of migrant workers employed by them has gone to their native villages and whatever remaining work force is reluctant to join their duty. In such a typical situation, smooth operations at the end of traders dealing in essential goods has become almost a challenging task

There are about 1.25 crore traders both wholesalers and retailers who are dealing in essential commodities, the traders’ body said, adding that out of which about four lakh are wholesalers and distributors and about 90 lakh retailers whereas, there are about two lakh medicine wholesalers and about 10 lakh medicine shops all over the country and rest of the traders are dealing in other essential goods but because of non availability of transport and crunch of workers, necessary passes from the authorities, only 25 per cent of these shops are working currently.