‘Weeklong’ Order Revoked, Lockdown in Nadia Only On Aug. 13 & 14

Krishnanagar, Aug. 7: Nadia administration on Friday revoked its decision for a weeklong comprehensive lockdown while announcing only two days’ shut down on August 13 and 14 in some specific areas in the district.

The decision for the weeklong lockdown has been modified by the district administration apparently after an annoyed chief minister Mamata Banerjee while speaking at Nabanna on Thursday advised the district administration not to announce such lockdown for more than ‘two days at a row”.

Sources in the district administration said that after the chief minister’s statement, many people at large including politicians called the senior officials in the district administration to modify the lockdown. The district administration eventually did it on Friday in the line Nabanna had wished.

However, explaining the reason, Nadia District Magistrate Vibhu Goel stated that the decision for modification was issued following “several requests and appeals received from different quarters to relax the lockdown”.

The Nadia district administration on Wednesday had announced a weeklong comprehensive lockdown from August 8 to 14 in 8 municipality towns and 25-gram panchayat areas to contain the increasing rate of Covid positive cases in the district.

Meanwhile with 53 new positive cases were detected on Friday, the number of total active cases in the district has reached 1147 creating a serious concern in the district administration.

A senior official of the district administration said, “The areas for lockdown will be treated as extended containment zone as announced earlier will remain the same”.

“We planned for strict continued lockdown since a section of people in the district blatantly violating the safety norms creating a vulnerable situation. But, we compelled to change decision since Nabanna did not like seven days’ lockdown at a go”, a senior official on anonymity said.

On Thursday chief minister Mamata Banerjee said, “Some lockdowns in the districts, being carried out by the district magistrates and the district police chiefs. That is not related to the state (government). This was advised by the Centre, that district magistrates could exercise discretion and do this in their containment areas, on a need-based basis”.

Chief Minister had actually advised for ‘containment area based lockdown’ and not to ‘shut a whole district down’. She also advised that the district administration can impose localized lockdown just in “one small road, or neighborhood, or area, nothing larger” but “not more than two days in a row …”.

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