After face masks and hand sanitisers started flying off store shelves, a rush on grocery stores has begun sparked by fears of shortages and price hikes as the coronavirus outbreak spreads unabated, and Nepal is named a high risk country by the World Health Organisation.

Rajkumar Shrestha, president of the Nepal Retailers Association, said that sales of food items such as rice, edible oil, lentils, legumes and flour had swelled by more than 25 percent within a week.

Read: Without a clear statement from the federal government regarding Covid-19, misinformation spreads at local level

“Supplies of all food items are normal, their prices have not increased, and there is little chance of that happening,” he told the Post. Dealers hold food stocks enough for six months, but they may not last more than four months due to the buying frenzy, he said, adding that there was no need for panic.

“The government should conduct inspections of wholesale markets so that retail prices remain stable,” Shrestha said.

With domestic agricultural production declining annually, the country is highly dependent on imported food items, and people are worried that shipments could be disrupted by the virus outbreak, he said.

“People wouldn't be so concerned if the country’s farm output was sufficient to meet domestic demand,” he added.

Bibek Dev, finance head at Big Mart, said that sales of food items had jumped by more than 55 percent from Sunday, especially of rice and lentils. “People are coming to the mart to buy food products in bulk at regular prices,” he said.

Economist Jagdish Chandra Pokhrel said that the current rush to stockpile goods was due to lack of public trust in the government and its system. “The government has issued assurances that there are adequate stocks of food items, but the current panic buying is proof that people have lost faith in the government and its system,” he said.

There is a difference between words and action which has become a tradition, and this has created insecurity among the public, Pokhrel said.

People still have a fresh memory of the scarcity of essential goods during the earthquake and the unofficial Indian embargo when the government failed to manage adequate supplies.

"A modern market mechanism has not been developed, and it is still functioning in the traditional way," Pokhrel said. "People believe in traders more than the government, and if they misinform the people with the intention of profiting off the virus scare, a situation like this arises. There is still cartelling and monopoly in the market, and this needs to be controlled."

Speaking at a press meet on Friday, Industry Minister Lekh Raj Bhatta sought to allay public concern by announcing that there were sufficient stocks of food items and there was no need to stock up on essential items after consumers started stockpiling food items and cooking gas including medicines.

The Indian government has also declared that it will not halt shipments of daily essential items.

Despite government assurances about adequate supplies of food items, petroleum products and medicines, a weak supply chain and lack of coordination among government bodies has prompted people to buy more than their usual quota, said a consumer rights activist.

Restaurant owner Ramesh Shrestha, who usually keeps a few days' stock of cooking gas, said that consumers worry about market cartelling and price hikes due to past experience. As a result, they are rushing to buy daily essential goods before prices skyrocket, he said.

Shrestha, the manager of the Sweet Restaurant and Bar at Thamel, said he went to get a gas bottle swap refill and found that there was a shortage.

He said that people were stockpiling goods simply because they do not trust the government’s supply system and inspection. “They have issued assurances that there is a good supply of everything, but if that is true, why do we have to stay in a gas line and why can't we buy face masks easily?”

Prem Lal Maharjan, president at the National Consumer Forum, said that the government's lack of homework on time created the panic situation in the past few weeks. If the government had worked on it earlier and informed the people regarding the supply of food items and medicines, people would not have rushed to buy them in a panic.