Owing to the surge in the demand of and shortage of face masks among panic-stricken public in Siliguri, following the global coronavirus outbreak, the Bengal Chemists and Druggists Association (BCDA) has taken initiatives to make masks available to the common people at reasonable rates in Siliguri for the next 10 days, starting tomorrow.

Bijay Gupta, the district secretary of the BCDA, today announced a drop in prices of the masks for the upcoming 10 days. “Day before yesterday, we held a meeting and decided to lower the prices of the masks to help the public. There is a problem in the availability of masks, for which the prices have increased all over India. As our members have also been acquiring those at increased rates, they had been selling accordingly. However, as per the instructions that we have just issued, the N95 type masks (as the original N95 is manufactured by 3M company in China itself, which is not being imported at present), that is currently being sold at Rs 200 and Rs 250 in the market, would be available at Rs 110 and three-layer masks at Rs 21 from tomorrow onwards for the next 10 days. This has been calculated going by the stock we have at hand at present. After 10 days, we will be reviewing the rates and deciding on it,” he said.

According to Gupta, they have asked the dealers not to charge high prices from the public at this point of time. “We have instructed our members to keep a margin of only two to three percent and sell them.” According to one of the members of BCDA, the sale of the masks, sanitisers, etc has risen about 200 times.

“If we used to sell four to five masks in a day earlier, we are now selling at least 40 to 50 of those,” he said. Since hand sanistisers are also completely off the market, Gupta said, “There is a shortage of sanitisers in the market. We are talking to the companies to make those available for the public soon.”

When asked about the types of masks, he said, “We have one layer, two-layer and three-layer masks. One layer and two layers are not of much use right now. But three-layer masks and N95 could be considered effective at present.” Till date the masks are being sold at varied rates at different places.

“Earlier, we hardly sold one or none in a day, but now we are selling 30 to 50 masks per day,” one of the dealers said. While most medical stores claimed that they only kept the common single-layered masks, some said that they were running out of stock.

“Normal single-layered masks were sold at Rs three to four. But now, they are available at varied prices, ranging anywhere in between Rs 25 and Rs 30 or 40. N95 is not less than Rs 250 anywhere at present,” one dealer in Khudiram Pally said. The Darjeeling district health department, on the other hand, said it is monitoring the situation.

“We have discussed the issue at length in the meeting over preparedness for coronavirus in Darjeeling yesterday. We are monitoring the situation, and necessary steps will be taken if specific complaints are received,” said Darjeeling district chief medical officer of health Dr Pralay Acharya.