Kolkata: The complete statewide lockdown will be imposed on Thursday and Friday — two consecutive days for the first time since the state government introduced the 'twice-a-week' shutdown to stem the spike in COVID-19 cases.
Earlier, the statewide lockdown was imposed on five days including July 23, 25, 29 and August 5 and 8 when the police and administration were found taking strict steps against any sort of violation of the set protocols.
Similar to that of all the previous days of complete lockdown, the police will be maintaining a close vigil since Thursday morning to avoid any sort of gathering or people moving out of their houses without any concrete reason.
All markets and shops apart from medicine shops will remain closed on both days. As a result, people were found collecting necessary items on Wednesday itself.
"All police stations have been directed to keep a close vigil so that no markets remain open," said a senior officer adding that police will be patrolling different locations since morning and there will be naka-checking at all the strategic locations. Legal steps will be taken against those who will be caught moving out of their houses or travelling in their private cars without any valid reason when there is a restriction on the normal functioning of public transport.
Police will be maintaining extra vigil to avoid any sort of "purposeful and politically motivated" attempts of disturbing the law and order situation on these days of the lockdown to adversely affect its actual purpose to "break the chain" to contain the spread of the pandemic. This comes when 3,169 people got infected with the disease and 53 people died due to COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. At the same time, the discharge rate reached 75.97 percent with 2,973 people being released from hospitals on Wednesday.
The flight and long-distance train services in the state will remain suspended on these two consecutive days of the lockdown. Vehicles meant only for essential services and those for intra-state and inter-state movement of goods will be allowed to ply.
As per the directives of the state government, all offices will remain closed as a result of which people will not have to venture out until and unless it is of utmost importance. With lockdown on Thursday and Friday, banks will remain closed for four consecutive days till Sunday.
Print, electronic media, social media are out of the ambit of the lockdown. The in-field jobs involved in agriculture and tea garden, factories and construction work with on-site labour (without any provision of travelling), continuous process industries, industries with in-house workers and capital and debt markets will not get affected due to the lockdown. Petrol pumps will also remain open on these days.
After Thursday and Friday, August 27 and 31 are two more remaining days in the month when complete lockdown will be imposed.