BALASORE: As many as five marriage parties with grooms from neighbouring West Bengal on their way to Balasore and Paradip were detained for several hours at check posts and toll plazas on Odisha-WB border a day after the State Government mandated strict surveillance in view of the Triple Mutant emergence.
Chaos was witnessed at Solpata, Udayapur and Laxmannath and police had a tough time as there was a large gathering. However, the wedding party vehicles had to return as their occupants could neither produce the mandatory RT-PCR test reports nor vaccination certificates at the border. People from Odisha who travel to West Bengal daily for business purposes too faced a harrowing time due to the restrictions.
Several people coming to the state from West Bengal were detained at Udayapur in Bhograi and Solpata check post after the inter-State border was sealed by Odisha government to contain the spread of Covid-19, on Friday. Janmajay Patra, a fisherman of Sugo, who had gone to Solpata in West Bengal to sell fish was not allowed to return to his village by police.
“When I left for Solpata, no barricades were erected on the border. When I returned, restrictions were imposed and I was not allowed back,” he said. A few farmers too faced a similar ordeal. Susanta Dey of Sugo said the Odisha government should have made people of the border areas aware of the restrictions before imposing them.
Meanwhile, Balasore Collector K Sudarshan Chakrabarty visited a few quarantine centres at Udaypur and a check post on the day. Additional District Magistrate of Balasore Sambit Nayak said the administration has intensified vigil on Odisha-West Bengal border due to detection of a new mutant strain of the virus in the neighbouring State. As many as three quarantine centres in Jaleswar and five at Bhograi block have been made functional to accommodate returnees, he said.
This apart, Jyothi Covid Hospital, equipped with 105 beds will be made functional from May 1. The 100-bed Covid hospital at FM Medical College and Hospital has already started functioning. Work on converting Soro UN College, DK College at Sugo and an Adarsha Vidyalaya to Covid care centres is on. The district reported 79 fresh positive cases in the last 24 hours.