new delhi bengaluru the disruption in supplies of essentials eased on thursday although consumers and the trade still complained about goods not getting through this prompted the government to issue guidelines late on thursday to ensure that holdups could be overcomeretailers both offline and online said they saw an improvement after local authorities and police acted to reverse the indiscriminate shutting of retail outlets and warehouses besides allowing free movement of workers needed to get the supply chain to work the standard operating procedure sop issued by the home ministry said home delivery of essential goods shall be encouraged and that delivery of all essential goods through ecommerce will remain operational it said the restrictions are on movement of people and not essential goods it said small retail shops large organised retail stores and ecommerce companies along with support infrastructure and associated workforce should be allowed to operate advt trucks carrying essential supplies that had been stuck at state borders for days also began moving meetings with police local authoritiesthis would ensure goods reach warehouses and online delivery fulfilment centres the big fastmoving consumer goods fmcg companies which had trouble running their factories and transporting finished goods in the past three days said the situation had begun to return to normal we are starting to see these things come in place in several parts of the country now and are working closely with government authorities to enable the distribution of essential goods throughout the nation a hindustan unilever hul spokesperson told etonline marketplaces bigbasket grofers flipkart and amazon which had stopped accepting orders from customers as the 21day lockdown went into effect on wednesday resumed taking them starting with a few locations the marketplaces said they were adding new regions by the hour flipkart and amazon however said they would only accept orders for essential productsretailers and consumer companies said matters began improving after meetings with police and local authorities in many states on wednesday however some added that it was taking longer than usual to get things up and running as they had to interact with local authorities in every state and district we are very appreciative of the support that the central and state governments and the local police authorities have provided the quick response and clarifications provided by them have made the situation on the ground better said a flipkart spokesperson were hopeful that these actions will build further confidence in the delivery executives advt dhirendra chopra chairman of gujaratbased osia hypermart echoed this viewauthorities are cooperating as they also realise they need us to deliver the essential goods he said we are expecting to get the curfew passes for our staff in the next couple of hoursnot everyone is convinced the situation is better community platform localcircles reported that the nonavailability of essential goods in offline stores had increased with 43 of respondents reporting they werent able to find what they wanted in a store on march 25 and 26 from 32 on march