Covid-19 crisis: Goa govt allows Swiggy, Zomato to deliver food, groceries

The government of Goa on Sunday issued a notice, whereby, it authorised Swiggy, Zomato and other home delivery platforms to operate and deliver food, groceries and other essential items at doorsteps during the lockdown due to COVID-19.

"ECommerce operators such as @swiggy_in, @ZomatoIN and other platforms have been permitted to deliver food and grocery items. #GoaFightsCOVID19," the Goa Chief Minister's Office tweeted today.

Earlier, two more coronavirus positive cases were reported in Goa on Sunday taking the state's tally to five.

A total of 1024 positive cases of COVID-19 have been found in India, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Friday. 27 persons have lost their lives due to this disease in the country.

 

Twitter slams Goa govt for food shortage, CRPF deployment

Amid growing unease over inability of food and essential items in Goa and the state government's decision to give central paramilitary forces a "free hand" to punish curfew violators, several voices on Twitter have attempted to highlight the plight of a population which has been facing a lockdown as a food shortage for as many as eight days in a row.

COVID-19: People violating lockdown to buy shampoo, says Goa CM

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has said that he was irked by some people, who prefer to violate the 21-day lockdown to buy something as trivial as a shampoo.

Sawant, whose administration has been criticised for triggering panic in Goa, due to chronic non-availability of essential goods in grocery stores across the state and the requisition of central forces to impose the curfew, said that the Central Industrial Security Force was pressed into service not to "punish people" but to maintain law and order in the state.

"Those who need to step out to buy essential goods for the house, one person from the family should step out and buy it. We have seen that people even leave their homes during the lockdown to buy shampoo," Sawant told IANS on Sunday.

"This is just not necessary. If rice in the home is over, one can step out and buy it, but to step out just because you have no shampoo...! I have seen this," Sawant said, while justifying his decision to impose the lockdown and at the same time to keep grocery stores open for 24 hours.

The Chief Minister also justified pressing in the CISF (he had earlier stated that the CRPF were being roped in) into law and order duties, even as videos of jawans of the central force beating people with sticks and publicly making them perform 'frog jumps' went viral on Sunday and triggered outrage on social media.