TAC News: Met with an upsurge in Covid-19 incidents, Odisha Government Called for an extended weekend shutdown across 11 major districts until June 30, on Monday. Ignoring the Centre’s graded lockout reopening under the Unlock Phase 1, and keeping in mind the situation of the state, the State Government decided to extend the lockdown further for a month.
The Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy announced the guidelines on Monday and said there would be complete shutdown on Saturdays and Sundays especially enforced in Ganjam, Jajpur, Kendrapada, Balangir, Nayagarh, Cuttack, Balasore, Bhadrak, Puri, Jagatsinghpur and Khurda districts. He also said “The two-day shutdown would be implemented in the 11 districts in view of high case load in those places. The infection rate has increased because of the migrant workers and labourers from others states to these districts because those people were the carriers of the virus and had now spread it all over the 11 districts.”
As before only healthcare and essential services will be allowed in these 11 districts while all the other services such as offices, banks, local transports and non-essentials services will still remain closed until the shutdown period gets over. Mr. Tripathy also mentioned that the train and flight services will anyhow remain unhindered during this period.
The State Government has also relaxed the night curfew from 7pm to 5am, though the centre has relaxed it from 9pm to 5am, The State Government of Odisha did not give permission for such hours. Also the religious places such as temples, mosques and the public gathering places like malls and cinema halls are also closed till 30th of June. The government has clearly mentioned that there would be no public gatherings or meetings till the end of this month. A limited number of people are allowed in marriages and other ritual rites. The reopening of schools, colleges and other educational institutions has also been extended till July31.
Though all of these are kept shut the State have showed a little leniency regarding the hotels, but with just 30% occupancy and their restaurants would provide in-house guest service. Tripathy also mentioned how far Mr. Naveen Pattnaik has handled the situation of the pandemic and will continue to do so. This month of June will be very crucial for Odisha because all the returness are now back and the positive cases are increasing day by day but the government is ready to fight this condition. Over 4.26 lakh migrant workers and labourers have returned to the State since May 3 and many more are expected to return back in the coming days. Since then the majority of the positive cases are among the returnees only, who are quarantined.
