Naveen Patnaik’s government in Odisha has announced a night curfew in urban areas of the state. Previously, the curfew was only imposed on the 10 districts bordering Chhattisgarh. Now the restriction has been extended to urban areas of all 30 counties due to an increase in Covid-19 cases.
Odisha chief secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra announced the new restrictions on Thursday, saying the curfew will take effect in the urban areas of 20 districts, including Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Friday.
In the meantime, the night curfew has been extended in the 10 districts bordering Chhattisgarh. The curfew in these districts will be observed from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. instead of 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. as previously announced.
The secretary-general also said the urban areas of Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Bargarh, Balangir, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Koraput and Malkangiri will be put on an indefinite weekend lockdown from Saturday.
College students request online exams
The students at Balasore Law College have urged authorities to put scheduled online exams online due to increasing Covid infections.
Montu Biswas, a sophomore LLB student at Balasore Law College, told India Today TV, “If the center and state have canceled board exams, they should consider Law College too. Performing an offline exam in the midst of the Covid wave could be disastrous. “
Sidharth Das, another student, echoed his colleague’s views: “If the Odisha government has announced that only 50 people will be allowed to marry and 20 people will be allowed to cremate, how can 250 students gather for the exam?”
The students have written to the Prime Minister of Odisha, Justice Minister Pratap Jena and the additional General Secretary Pradipta Mohapatra to conduct online exams.
Odisha’s Covid record
Odisha’s Covid-19 case count rose to 3.58,342 on Thursday after 2,989 people tested positive, the largest one-day increase this year, while two more deaths raised the death toll to 1,935, a health department official said.
Of the new infections detected in all 30 districts, 1,733 were reported from quarantine centers and the remaining cases are local contact cases.
Sundergarh district recorded 631 new cases, followed by Khurda (438), Kalahandi (260), Cuttack (208), Nuapada (151), Sambalpur (148), Bargarh (126), Puri (112) and Bolangir (110) said .
The deaths were reported from Kalahandi and Keonjhar districts. A total of 53 other Covid 19 patients have died of comorbidities so far.
The coastal state now has 14,621 active cases while 3,58,342 patients have recovered from the disease to date.
It tested over 94.96 lakh samples, including 34,571 on Wednesday, the official said, adding the positivity rate is 3.77 percent.
(With PTI inputs)
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