BHUBANESWAR: Questioning the rosy picture painted by the State Government, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee on Saturday demanded that gram panchayat-wise spending on establishing isolation centres and their status should be made public. Alleging that the figures released at the media conference are far from reality, Sudarsan Das, in-charge of COVID-19 control room of the party, said reports from panchayat representatives from different parts of the State do not tally with the claims made by Government.
Government has made a provision for establishing an isolation centre in each of panchayats by spending Rs 5 lakh. “However, when it was cross checked with the sarpanchs, we could come to know that isolation centres set up in schools/colleges are having 10 to 20 beds,” he said and added that the fund is mostly spent for white washing the rooms, repairing toilets, purchasing buckets and mugs. The total money spent for setting up an isolation centre is around Rs 2 lakh, he added.
Stating that there is no transparency and accountability in the whole process and nowhere are the Sarpanchs or other PRI members involved, Das said the isolation centres are being used only at a few places. Referring to the government claim that over 35 lakh people in extreme distress condition have been provided with cooked food, the OPCC alleged that sarpanchs in many panchayats said they are not distributing cooked food as the number of people coming under the criteria of eligibility to get such support is very low.
The Congress demanded that Panchayatraj Department should release a list of such camps where cooked food is distributed. The OPCC suggested that MGNREGS card holder labourers in each panchayat should be allowed to work in agricultural field of private farmers and given their wages under the scheme.
Police Commissioner asks cops to help elderly
Bhubaneswar: Twin City Commissioner of Police Sudhanshu Sarangi has asked the police personnel to help senior citizens in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar during the lockdown period. The nodal officer appointed in each police station has been asked to share details of home delivery services for medicine, grocery, cooked food and vegetables on the WhatsApp groups created for senior citizens staying within their respective jurisdictions.
Sarangi asked the nodal officers to frequently interact with the senior citizens, who are registered with police, over phone and extend support to them whenever required. The Police Commissioner held a meeting in this regard on Saturday via video conferencing with Additional CPs Sanjay Singh and Anup Kumar Sahoo, Traffic DCP Sagarika Nath, DCP Security Nirmal Kumar Satpathy, ACPs, IICs and nodal officers appointed for the senior citizens.