By Our Correspondent
BERHAMPUR/BHUBANESWAR: Of the 34 COVID-19 deaths, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s home turf, Ganjam alone reported 20 deaths till Saturday night. Ganjam district collector Vijay Amruta Kulange acted very tough on former Union Minister Dilip Ray owned Hotel Mayfair Lagoon in Gopalpur.
With collector Vijay Amruta Kulange fighting a tough battle against COVID-19, the IAS officer on Saturday sealed Hotel Mayfair Gopalpur for 7 days for violation of social distancing during arrangement of a marriage event.
Taking to Twitter, Ganjam Collector & District Magistrate, informed about the sealing of Hotel Mayfair Gopalpur for violation of social distancing for arrangement of marriage. The district Collector made it clear that such violations will not be tolerated and urged all to follow social distancing norms to keep COVID-19 infection at bay.
The district administration’s whip came after hundreds of people, who were part of the marriage procession, were spotted dancing without wearing masks and also violating the social distancing norms on Thursday.
A video of the entire incident has gone viral on social media. In the video, hundreds of marriage revellers were caught on camera shaking legs close to each other, thus violating the social distancing norms.
Taking note of the issue, the district administration imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 and lodged complaints against both parties. Later today, the police arrested the groom, his father, and three of his uncles. Besides, the car, in which the groom was taken to the marriage venue, has also been impounded by the Regional Transport Office.
With situation in Ganjam turning serious, State Government deployed two IAS and six OAS officers for Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) Management. Parul Patawari, 2015 Batch IAS and Vishal Singh, 2016 Batch IAS were for the first time appointed as Special ADM Ganjam.
The six OAS officers are Sudhakar Nayak, Padmanav Behera, Lokanath Dalabehera, Shaktikanta Ray, Chittaranjan Mohanta and Suvendra Kumar Samal. These officers have been directed to report to the Ganjam District Collector immediately without availing joining time.
As the number of COVID-19 cases in Ganjam continued to rise with nearly 500 cases being reported in last 48 hours creating panic among the residents.The COVID-19 tally of Ganjam district crossed the 2000-mark with 213 new cases. The number of active cases in the district stands at 917 while 20 patients have so far succumbed to the deadly virus. Ganjam reported three fresh deaths while Bhubaneswar (Khurda district) registered two fatalities, an official said.
Five more people died of COVID-19 in State, taking the death toll to 34, while the total number of cases reached 8,601 with the detection of 495 fresh infections. Of the 8,601 cases, 2,853 are active while 5,705 people have recovered, officials said.
