Wholesale markets in Delhi open to labour shortage, broken supply chains

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday announced further relaxations in lockdown norms and lifted the odd-even formula under which shops in a market opened on alternate days

Battling the coronavirus scare, wholesale markets in the national capital restarted full-fledged trading on Tuesday, but they face a labour shortage and stare at an uphill task of repairing the broken demand-supply chain.

The markets opened in full a day after the Delhi government lifted the odd-even rule for shops. But the government-imposed restriction on cross-border movement, which, the traders said, compounded their problems.

The revival of trade will be a slow and painful process, the associations of various wholesale markets said. Only a positive approach" of the Centre and the Delhi government will speed it up amid a raging