JAIPUR: The hustle and bustle returned to city markets on the first day of staggered unlocking on Tuesday.
Markets were teeming with customers; many roads, which wore deserted look even recently, saw vehicular traffic reminiscent of pre-lockdown times.
Tea shacks alongside important roads like M I Road, Mahesh Nagar, Tonk Road and Chandpol were brimming with customers.
Several shopkeepers made elaborate arrangements to follow Covid appropriate behaviour.
Akshay Agarwal, owner of a tile and pipe shop in Mansarovar, said business was limping back to normal, but soaring heat deterred many people from venturing out.
Shops open in Walled City in Jaipur on the first day of staggered unlocking on Tuesday“Curbs and restrictions kept people indoors.
Now gradually lockdown is being eased but footfall has not increased much due to debilitating heat,” he said, adding he was hopeful of customers returning in coming weeks.
Small kiosks and bakeries selling cold coffee and milkshakes at Ashok Nagar and Yudishthir Marg near C-Scheme and around Statue Circle were teeming with customers waiting for their takeaway orders.
Many bookshops in Chaura Rasta and Barkat Nagar saw students queueing up to buy books after a wait of over one month.
“We had been getting a lot of calls from students who wanted to buy books for different entrance tests for law and business schools.
Passbooks and course books for college and university examinations are selling quickly,” said Govind Daga, a bookseller near Chaura Rasta.
He added that business has not returned to the pre-Covid level yet as enforcing social distancing in small areas remains an uphill task.
The city police also said that traffic increased on Tuesday after businesses and offices opened.
“We have formed over 60 teams.
They have fanned out across the city to check places where Covid-19 appropriate behavior is not followed,” said additional commissioner of police (law and order), Rahul Prakash.
At other places, barricades were cleared so that traffic could resume seamlessly.
By evening, however, police personnel brought them back to enforce the evening curfew.