A number of medical shop owners in different areas in Samba district are facing hardships to bring medicines stock for the visiting customers due to the ongoing lockdown amid Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Even though the Samba district administration has issued curfew passes to the chemist shop owners to purchase medical stock from Jammu but the shopkeeper’s alleged biased approach by the authorities in issuing the curfew passes.

“Some of the chemists have been issued curfew passes with no mention of validity which means they are valid till the lockdown ends. But there are many who were issued such passes with a validity of just a few days. We fail to understand on what basis the passes are being issued by the authorities. The problem is more chronic in many areas of Samba district including Vijaypur tehsil.

“Even the stock is not available in the market, and we are worried about this. There should be uniform issuance of pass for every chemist shop owner without any pick and choose policy by the administration. When we appeal them to extend our pass, they hardly consider it”, a medical shop owner told.

“Already the situation is so critical and this selective curfew pass is issued by the administration has further compounded our miseries. I appeal to the administration not to issue selective passes but all chemist shop owners should get curfew passes which are valid till lockdown ends”, another shopkeeper maintained.

Meanwhile, when contacted (both through messages and calls), Deputy Commissioner (DC) Samba was not available for comments on this issue.