The lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus, which completed a week on Wednesday, has hit fruit vendors hard.

As fruits are perishable, the administration has exempted their sale during the lockdown along with medicines, milk, vegetables and grocery.

While the supply line of medicine, milk, vegetables and grocery items is intact, that for fruits has stopped ever since the lockdown came into effect on March 24 midnight.

As a result, the vendors are now procuring fruits from cold storage. No fresh stock is entering the steel city.

“I used to sell fruits worth Rs 4,000 a day on an average and make a profit of Rs 700 a day. But after the lockdown, my sales dropped by over 50 percent as too few people are turning up to buy them, despite it being the Navratra time when demand of fruits remains comparatively higher,” said Khursheed Alam, a 60-year-old fruit vendor who runs his business on a pushcart on N-Road in Bistupur.

Alam said they were suffering huge losses as the stock of bananas and oranges that they had brought for the ongoing Navratra is now rotting because of the sudden rise in temperature.

“On one hand, the sale is drastically down, causing our profit margins to dip, and on the other hand, the loss incurred is also because the stock gets rotten as the weather gets hotter,” said the vendor who has to support a family of six, including himself.

Around 50 vendors sell fruits on pushcarts in Bistupur and as many in Sakchi, apart from which there are around 200 pushcart vendors in Jugsalai, the station area, Burmamines, Sonari, Kadma, Telco, Golmuri and Mango.