Chhatrapur: Temples across Ganjam district will remain closed to contain further spread of coronavirus, collector Vijay Amruta Kulange Thursday said. He also urged the people to celebrate Deepavali festival as a green festival this year.
Kulange, who convened a district-level COVID-19 management meeting through video conferencing, urged the people to celebrate the festival by lighting lamps, without bursting firecrackers.
At the conference, the collector said the temples will not be opened, at least for the foreseeable future. “The temple areas are generally limited and not properly ventilated. Aged people and patients have been cautioned against going to temples as the risk of contracting the virus is high there,” Kulange said.
The collector also asked the officers to ensure that services at banks, buses, auto-rickshaws, tehsil offices, block offices, hospitals are not delivered without beneficiaries wearing masks. It was decided that mask distribution and awareness programmes would be intensified in the days to come. Kulange further asked the officers to ensure that COVID-19 warriors do not get infected.
“Finish the door-to-door health check-up before Deepavali and put up stickers on the covered houses,” he ordered.
At the meeting, Kulange said that people can visit parks for walks but all should maintain social distance there.
Among others, Berhampur Municipal Corporation, commissioner Siddeshwar Baliram Bondar, PD, DRDA, Sinde Dattatraya Bhausaheb, ADMs Kabindra Kumar Sahu and Amiya Kumar Sahu, Chhatrapur sub-collector Priyaranjan Prusty, CDMO Dr Uma Shankar Mishra, emergency officer Dibyalochan Mohanta were present in the meeting.
PNN