Odisha: Home delivery of liquor to be continued during lockdown till July-end
Representational Image
BHUBANESWAR: Home delivery of liquor by the licensed shops will continue during the lockdown restrictions till July-end while the state government also allowed fish, meat, chicken, egg and fruits shops to open from 6am to 1pm during this period.
Special relief commissioner PK Jena on Friday modified the lockdown order issued a day before to include additional exemptions during the two-week restrictions in four districts—Ganjam, Khurda, Cuttack, Jajpur and Rourkela Municipal Corporation area.
“While home delivery of liquor has been allowed as per the existing guidelines issued by the state excise department, the fish, meat, chicken, egg and fruits shops are allowed to open subject to strict adherence of social distancing norms,” said Jena.
The order also authorised the local authorities to relocate the fish, meat and chicken shops out of the traditional market to avoid crowding. Earlier, grocery and vegetable shops were allowed to open from 6am till 1pm during the restrictions.
The state government allowed mining activities to continue during the lockdown while the telecom and internet service providers including their maintenance offices and movement of staffs with proper identity card have also been allowed. Data and call centres can also operate with limited staff strength.
Banks, insurance and financial institutions are allowed to operate with not more than 25 per cent of their staff strength for essential banking transactions and ATM services. Similarly, capital and debt market services can also function with bare minimum staff strength.
Among the offices of the Union and state governments, the state government allowed office of Comptroller and Auditor General and their field offices, office of United Nations agencies and state government departments identified by the general administration (GA) department. All these offices are allowed to operate with minimum staff strength.
As the state government said restrictions during the lockdown period is mainly related to movement of people but not that of goods, cold storages, warehousing services and packaging units including their transportation are also allowed. Deployment of private security services are also exempted from the lockdown restrictions.
Disaster management establishments, district and municipal administrations, police and fire services, medical establishments, utilities and essential services to operate are among the state government offices exempted from lockdown restrictions.
The state GA department said administrative departments will adopt work from home protocol for their employees using the virtual private network (VPN) facilities during the lockdown period. The issue and receipt section of each department will function on a roster basis to ensure that the dak (communications) received is scanned and uploaded on Odisha Secretariat Workflow Automation System (OSWAS) and letter issued.
While health department will operate with full strength, the departmental control rooms and state IT centre will function 24×7 to ensure uninterrupted functioning of OSWAS, IT and telecom services. No physical meetings will take place during the lockdown period.
All state government employees will remain present at the headquarters to attend at short notice and will also available over telephone at all the times. Secretaries of various departments have been authorized to select staff members to attend office to dispose urgent and essential matters. Similarly, the administrative departments will decide on functioning of sub-ordinate and field offices.