Mumbai: Amidst the 21 day nationwide lockdown, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has urged the PM Narendra Modi to bring clarity in categorizing essential goods and streamlining the impaired distribution chain. The lack of clarity has disrupted the supply chain and movement of essential goods across the country.
‘’In the wake of the pandemic Covid 19, the nationwide lockdown has brought the Fast Moving Consumer Goods(FMCG) market to a complete standstill. The FMCG market also caters to the consumer needs of health and hygiene. However, a lack of uniform definition of ‘’essential goods in non-food categories’’ has created confusion among law enforcing agencies, consumers and distributors,’’ explained Pawar.
He brought to the PM’s notice the supply chain is disrupted and movement of essential goods is impeded. Pawar to support his request has enclosed the note from Confederation of Indian Industry(CII) seeking the government intervention to render clarity.
CII and other industry bodies had said that the food industry supply chain is disaggregated and dependent on inter state movement of goods. Because of the nature of the materials, inventories across the chain were low. If the supply chain is broken, the country could run out of stocks of packaged food in the next 7 to 10 days.
They had urged that essential food commodities be made available at all points in time and throughout the country so that people would not indulge in panic buying. They cited that the food and hygiene products will remain the key priority but as the lockdown progresses there may be shortages of other non food products.
