On April 16, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, after a meeting with the district collectors and his cabinet colleagues, claimed that the COVID-19 infection ratio in the state has started falling due to the sustained efforts of the government. Stating that the cases had started falling from its steep jump mainly from a “single source”, the chief minister confidently hoped that the state will achieve “zero positive” in another four to five days.
Fifteen days later, Chennai began reporting a huge spike in COVID-19 positive cases, thus turning into a metropolitan city with highest number of cases, next only to Mumbai.
Maybe, the chief minister might not have heard anything from his deputy O. Panneerselvam on the containment measures taken inside Asia’s biggest wholesale market complex in Chennai’s Koyambedu. The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, which administers the Koyambedu market, is one of the portfolios of Panneerselvam. Spread across 295 acres, the market has at least 150 entry and exit points, where at least 15,000 people walk in and out on a normal day.
While the Koyambedu Market Management Committee maintains that several measures were followed, including hand wash, social distancing and use of masks, the market has developed into a new cluster. Apparently, Panneerselvam, personally visited the market complex on March 29, five days after the lockdown came into force, to give instructions to the traders and vegetable vendors to follow social distancing. On March 30, he once again visited the complex.
On April 6, he said the market was regularly sanitised. It was only on April 27 Panneerselvam met with the officials and others to prevent community spread in Koyambedu market. By then, the infection spread from the market complex had reached various places of the city.
The first case, origin of which was traced to Koyambedu, was reported on April 29 from Mylapore, one of the swanky areas in Chennai, where a provision store owner and his family were infected. The second came from Ambattur, where at least 19 people were infected, the primary source being a vegetable vendor from Padikuppam region, who had frequented to Koyambedu.
“Koyambedu is the heart of Chennai. The business there has come down by more than 50 per cent because of the lockdown. We followed all precautions even when there were trucks coming in from other states and districts. And most labourers who were into loading and unloading at the market went to their villages before the lockdown began,” says A.M. Vikiramaraja of the Federation of Tamil Nadu Traders Association.
Now, the market complex has been partially shut and only wholesale market with 300 to 400 shops has been allowed to operate from the same complex. Flowers and fruits market has been shifted to Madhavaram. Koyambedu has turned into one of the major five clusters in Tamil Nadu, which is “under investigation” by the health department to trace the infection source.
While the Palaniswami government had set up several expert committees and the health department is working round the clock to control the spread, Koyambedu cluster has turned into a challenge for the state government which was expecting the curve to flatten.
