Chennai's shopping hub falls silent as authorities step up

The pungent smell of disinfectants and shut mega retail stores greet stragglers on Thiagaraya Nagar's Ranganathan Street here, the city's shopping hub that usually teem with thousands of men, women and children.

The coronavirus scare has snuffed the life out of the bustling street with only few customers and couple of security personnel around the closed retail outlets.

Apart from these outlets, which sell a range of items right from top clothing brands to sandals- hawkers too are conspicuous by their absence on the busy Usman Road in Thiagaraya Nagar, popularly known as T Nagar.

In front of the shut stores, a couple of security personnel were seen telling the few customers that turned up that the outlets will open once the virus threat dissipates.

Notices were also prominently displayed about the closure due to the coronavirus.

A board has been put at the sprawling Panagal Park, a popular hangout in T Nagar for shoppers and the public alike, announcing that the place was shut as part of precautionary measures to tackle the virus.

Similar is the case with other big parks in the city.

There also not many visitors to the adjacent shopping area of Pondy Bazaar, which recently got a facelift with a pedestrian plaza.

The usual police personnel around the lanes and bylanes of the busy shopping area were comparatively less in numbers.

T Nagar is also famous for big ticket stores dealing in clothing, jewellery, and a range of items for everyday needs.

The ubiquitous autorickshaw drivers on the street said they have been affected in a big way.

"Shoppers are our key customer base and we don't know for how long we have to endure this ordeal," one of them said.

Sanitation workers said the virus prevention measures have made their jobs more tough as much was expected from them.

Authorities have stepped up preventive measures being followed for over a month to combat the coronavirus.

The shopping hub witnessed a major disinfection drive led by Commissioner of Revenue Administration, J Radhakrishnan and Commissioner, Chennai Corporation, G Prakash on Wednesday and they inspected if huge stores that used to see thousands congregating were shut as per government instructions.

Besides sanitation workers, vehicles fitted with disinfectant dispensers were deployed in downtown streets to carry out fumigation.

At the city's biggest wholesale and retail vegetable, fruit and flower market -Koyambedu- all incoming trucks were fumigated under the supervision of officials.

Similar, fumigation was carried out in a slew of other locations in the city including government offices and police stations.

Top officials also inspected locations including the Chennai Moffusil Bus terminus, a key inter and intra State bus transportation depot, and railway stations.

Awareness programmes were conducted by government officials for industry representatives, police and local welfare associations.

On March 16, Chief Minister K Palaniswami announced closure of places where people congregated in large numbers like cinema halls and malls till March 31.