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Pre-Pandemic Activity Missing as Delhi Street Markets Reopen

Anjana Pasricha

   NEW DELHI - From hawking belts and clothes to utensils and toys,
   vendors at a newly reopened weekly street market in the Indian capital
   are impatient to resume business, but pre-pandemic crowds of customers
   are missing.
   "I used to make about two to five dollars," Jaiprakash Gupta said,
   hoping a passerby would stop at his jeans and shirts stall.
   "But I have not even sold a single item so far. For two hours I have
   not seen a single customer," he said.
   Held across the city, thousands of vendors carry their wares from one
   market to another through the week to pavements in several
   neighborhoods, where millions of lower-income people shop. In a city of
   20 million, they have provided a good source of income for thousands
   who have migrated into the city to make a living.
   However, a surge in coronavirus cases in Delhi after a monthlong
   decline has made customers wary about the weekly markets.
   "By this time before March, there used to be a huge rush, now there is
   nobody," said Mohammad Shaizan, looking despondently down the street.
   The COVID-19 pandemic is raging in India -- half of the country's
   nearly four million cases were added in August, the highest monthly
   tally in the world since the pandemic began.
   However, authorities are lifting restrictions swiftly as they focus on
   mitigating the devastating impact of the pandemic on millions of
   people.
   The economy shrank by 24% from April to June when a stringent lockdown
   wiped out businesses. It was India's biggest economic collapse since it
   began publishing gross domestic product data in 1996. The impact has
   been hardest on those depending on India's vast informal economy, such
   as weekly markets.
   Public health experts say restoring economic activity is a step in the
   right direction as they flag concerns about long-term health risks
   posed by the devastating loss of incomes.
   "There are huge consequences in terms of nutrition among children,
   immunization services are disrupted and these things are likely to have
   an impact down the line, two or three years or maybe even longer," said
   Kapil Yadav, assistant professor of community medicine at the premier
   All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.
   "Children used to get a free midday meal in school, now even schools
   are shut," he said.
   The government has been giving free cereals, such as wheat, rice and
   lentils, to 800 million Indians since the lockdown and will continue to
   do so until November.
   That helped stave off hunger but was not enough, the vendors at this
   market said.
   "I was not able to get any work, so it was difficult to buy vegetables
   and milk for children," belt stall owner Ram Kishore said.

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