Thursday’s deserted streets and markets in south Bengal districts were back to their crowded self on Friday as people came out of homes after locking themselves in on the first day of a staggered lockdown that the state government has planned to arrest the spread of Covid-19.

The twice-a-week lockdown that began on Thursday will return on Saturday only to be followed by another one on Wednesday next week. The government is expected to announce on Monday the second day of the lockdown for next week.

As life came to a standstill across the state on Thursday, government officials saw hope and thought people had finally woken up to the need to fight the disease. Their hopes, however, were belied on Friday as people crowded markets and shops to stock up on essentials before the state goes into lockdown mode again on Saturday.

Both in rural and urban areas of the districts, shoppers crowded vegetable shops, groceries and departmental stores forgetting the need for physical distancing.

In Bolpur, traffic came to a halt on the Santiniketan-Bolpur road on Friday morning. Police had a tough time controlling the rush in the town.

In Durgapur, Krishnagar, Ranaghat and Basirhat, civic volunteers were deployed to control crowds.

Srijan Mukherjee, a resident of East Burdwan’s Kalna, said: “The local administration had announced weeklong lockdown with a day’s notice from Wednesday. We hardly managed to stock essential items. Thursday’s lockdown imposed by the state government had aggravated our problem. We were compelled to come out in large numbers to stock essential items because there was not much time.”

The municipal towns of Bankura, Bishnupur and Sonamukhi in Bankura witnessed a huge rush on Friday morning as a large number of people came out of their home to buy essential commodities.

At the biggest vegetable market in Nabadwip, Sumita Sinha, 55, was seen pushing for space before she managed to sneak past several others to buy vegetables.

“I would have preferred to stay back at home but we will have another lockdown on Saturday. I had run out of vegetables and had to take the risk of visiting the crowded market,” she said adjusting her mask.

An official of the Nadia district administration admitted that the footfalls at markets would do more harm than what the total lockdown achieved on Thursday.

“We are trying to make people aware of the need to stay safe and maintain social distance to halt the spread of the virus. Rise in the number of cases is bound to put stress on the health infrastructure and we want people to take precautionary measures,” the official added.

Although people in other parts of the state got the entire Friday to buy essentials, towns like Kalna, Katwa, and Memari in East Burdwan, or Baranagar, Barrackpore, Barasat and Bongaon in North 24-Parganas had a small window to buy essentials as the local administration had imposed week-long lockdown to arrest the spike in Covid cases.

The rise in Covid cases has left the administration in several districts worried and as desperate measures they are resorting to localised lockdowns

In Bankura, the district administration has decided to implement lockdown in its three municipality areas — Bankura, Bishnupur and Sonamukhi — for five days starting on July 26. According to the order issued by district magistrate S. Arun Prasad, the three towns will be under lockdown from July 26 to 29. The lockdown will be in force from 5pm to 6am.

Additional reporting by Snehamoy Chakraborty