Photos: Delhi's clogged Sadar Bazaar a recipe for COVID disaster

People, flouting social distancing norms, visit the crowded Sadar Bazar market, amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, in New Delhi.

With Diwali just a fortnight away, a pandemic-hit people desperate to go out and the lockdown stricken businessmen eager to compensate with some brisk sales, Delhi's Sadar Bazaar saw madness in motion.

Forget social distancing, the national capital's wholesale market was clogged with buyers and sellers.

With the Delhi government seemingly turning a blind eye, it has become a recipe for disaster in the city which till Friday saw 5000 new COVID-19 cases for 3 consecutive days.

While the Centre may be aggressively campaigning for masking up till the COVID vaccine is here, very few in the vicinity of Sadar Bazaar were seen wearing masks. Those who did wear it were found wearing it wrongly, with someone's mask dangling from the ears or covering just the chin.

Not just buyers who queued up at shops, carts carrying bulk materials found it extremely difficult to make their way through the crowds. It was just like any normal Diwali.

While there were barricades put up by Delhi Police to regulate the crowds which swamp this wholesale market with an estimated 40,000 shops, each year; the sheer number was overwhelming enough for such barricades not to prove a hindrance to Delhiites' ambition to go shopping and 'feel normal'.

After the nationwide lockdown in late March owing to the pandemic, the national capital's business community like anywhere else in the country took a financial hit. Now, with virtually everything open with just mild restrictions and the buyers eager to shed their inhibitions during the festive season, Sadar Bazaar has tossed aside all Covid concerns.

While, in view of the festive season, Delhi Police urged all market associations to put some basic rules in place like compulsory wearing of masks, maintaining physical distancing or providing hand sanitizers to each customer, on the ground in Sadar Bazaar little or nothing was being followed.

Delhi reported a record 6,725 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, hit by its worst wave of infections since March.

New Delhi had previously reported a high of 5,891 cases on October 30, averaging more than 5,200 cases a day this past week.

The city now has 403,096 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 6,604 deaths reported. But in Sadar Bazaar, that seems to be the least of their worries.