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karnataka lockdown: Karnataka allows ecommerce delivery of only essential items on weekends

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Ecommerce companies can deliver all products to customers in Karnataka on weekdays, including during the night curfew hours, but they can deliver only “essential items” on weekends, as per the government notification imposing curbs on movements from Wednesday night.

The state has imposed night curfew from 9 pm to 6 am, and weekend curfew from 9 pm Friday to 6 am Monday, banning most activities as a steep surge in Covid-19 cases has started overwhelming its hospitals, particularly in Bengaluru. The restrictions will be in place for two weeks.

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Annexure 1A of the notification related to weekday night curfew said ecommerce operations and other home deliveries are allowed. However, annexure 1B on weekend curfew said “home delivery of essential items shall be encouraged to minimise movement of individuals outside their homes” during the weekends.

This caused some confusion among ecommerce firms on Wednesday morning.

A senior government official clarified that ecommerce firms can deliver only “essential items” on the weekends after the companies represented to the government seeking a clarification.

Companies are still not sure what in the government’s opinion constitutes ‘essentials’ and ‘non-essentials’.

Karnataka has joined an increasing number of states imposing significant curbs in a bid to break the Covid-19 chain as the fast-spreading infection has pushed their healthcare infrastructure to near breakdown.

Delhi, Rajasthan and Maharashtra have imposed curbs on ecommerce operations, allowing only ‘essentials’, while Chhattisgarh has temporarily suspended ecommerce operations.

In Tamil Nadu, only food delivery is allowed on Sundays, that too only for 10 hours from morning till evening under three time schedules the government has notified.

Ecommerce firms have approached the state government, seeking permission to operate on Sundays.

An executive at an ecommerce firm said they are not in favour of classification of items as essentials and non-essentials as it creates confusion and gives scope for interpretation by policemen.

With governments encouraging work from home till the infection numbers drop, computers and peripherals too have become essential tools for professionals, but ecommerce firms are clueless if they form part of essentials or not.

The industry had made a representation to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) last week, seeking its intervention in Maharashtra where they have not been allowed to ship non-essential products. A letter from an industry association submitted to the DIIT said that essential and non-essential was a subjective matter.

ET had also
reported last week that Maharashtra might amend its rules to allow ecommerce companies to deliver all products sometime this week. However, no such change has been notified as yet.

Delhi had on Monday announced that only
delivery of essentials will be allowed in the city during its week-long lockdown.

Curbs on ecommerce by states come at a time when they’re seeing orders surge on account of restrictions on physical movement and rising cases of Covid-19.

On Tuesday evening, online grocer Grofers CEO Albinder Dhindsa had tweeted that more than 600,000 customers had placed products in their carts and were awaiting checkout in anticipation that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi would announce a lockdown in his address to the nation at 8:45 pm.

Modi, however, asked states to control the spread of the virus through the use of micro-containment zones and that they should consider lockdown as an absolute last resort.



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