BERHAMPUR: THE pent-up frustration of people over lockdown restrictions came to the fore at Kankarada village of Sanakhemundi block in Ganjam district after a scuffle broke out between residents and revenue staff during enforcement of Covid-19 guidelines on Thursday.
Irate locals detained revenue officials and staff for around five hours when the latter sealed a medicine store for violating social distancing norms.Kankarada was recently declared a containment zone after a tea stall owner tested positive for Covid-19. Later, several positive cases surfaced in the village and nearby villages. This led the administration to impose restrictions on opening of shops to contain the virus spread.
During this period, several medicine shops were sealed on the charge of violating social distancing norm, resulting in major inconvenience to the local residents.
On the day, the additional tehsildar along with his staff again reached the village and sealed a medicine shop. The locals, who were already frustrated with the strict measures, lost their cool and gheraoed the revenue staff demanding reopening of the medicine shop.
Receiving information, the local tehsildar accompanied by police reached the spot and but they too were detained by the group of residents which had swelled considerably with people of nearby areas gathering at the spot.
After around five hours of detention, the revenue staff and police were released when Berhampur Sub-Collector SD Bhausaheb along with senior officials reached the village and opened the medicine shop.
The residents urged Bhausaheb to appoint doctors in the local hospital. Armed police have been deployed in Kankarada village.
Meanwhile, as many as 250 new positive cases were detected in Ganjam in the last 24 hours, taking the tally to 9,996 in the district. The new cases includes 27 frontline workers, 222 local contacts and one with travel history.
On the day, the district also reported four more deaths due to Covid-19. The victims are in the age group of 33 to 65 years. While the 65-year old female was also suffering from diabetes, hypertension and hypothyroidism, the rest three did not have any other disease.Of the total positive cases in the district, 7,130 have recovered.
The authorities of Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC), which has reported 1,800 positive cases and 17 deaths so far, have decided to conduct serological survey in the city.
BeMC Commissioner Chakraborty Singh Rathore has requested the Dean of MKCG Medical College and Hospital to provide the required facilities for the surveywhich is scheduled to start from August 3 to 7.