Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday took stock of the improvements in supply of essential goods by e-commerce platforms, logistics providers and large retailers, a week into the 21-day nationwide lockdown to combat the spread of COVID-19.
Goyal, in the meeting with CEOs from firms such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, Grofers, BigBasket, Delhivery, Amazon among others, sought to know if supply chain issues that the companies had highlighted in his previous meeting with them on Thursday had been solved.
“Everyone informed the minister that while their supply chain issues had been solved, they were still facing an acute shortage of manpower on the ground,” said a person privy to the discussion. “The minister was of the view that things have improved, albeit slowly, now was the time to improve things faster.”
A few companies also asked the minister to expedite the process of obtaining licenses to allow them to stock food and pharmaceutical supplies as they sought to improve the availability of such essentials for consumers.
ET had earlier reported that Flipkart was granted provisional clearance to stock food at 125 odd sites across the country by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in order to expand its business of delivering essentials to consumer doorsteps for the duration of the ongoing lockdown.
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