Team Herald

MARGAO: The Wholesale Fish Traders and the South Goa Planning and Development Authority (SGPDA) have announced the closure of the wholesale fish market for the next 8 days as they have been unable to maintain social distancing.

On any given day, there are at least 5 thousand people inside the market, during the peak hours. Even with the announcements on loudspeakers and police, they have been unable to maintain social distancing. Hence, a meeting for consensus from the District Collector of South Goa, the Police, the Member Secretary, Chairman of PDA, Margao Municipal Council (MMC) representatives and the representatives of wholesale traders was held.

The Wholesale Traders agreed that the social distancing is not happening and said that they had anticipated that this problem would arise. Chairman of SGPDA Wilfred D’sa said, ‘If we recollect, the first case of the COVID spread was from Mangor hill and it was a fish businessman. Hence, we don’t want to take chances,” D’sa added.

The SGPDA will hold a meeting with the traders intermediately and decide how to open the market later and what precautions would have to be maintained to do so. The PDA has also been urged not to allow sale outside the market.

MMC was present at the meeting and the Collector has given direction to disallow the sale of fish outside the market areas.

However, when asked whether the trucks would continue coming into the state the traders said they can’t be stopped.