Kolkata: To create awareness to check the spread of COVID-19, the State government has taken up a unique move of distributing masks among people on the day of Rakhsha Bandhan.
The programme has been taken up by the state Youth Services and Sports department. An order to supply around 5.5 lakh masks for the same has already been placed with the Micro Small and Medium Enterprise and Textile department.
This year Raksha Bandhan is on August 3. Earlier, state Youth Services and Sports department had arranged state-wide Sanskriti Divas in the backdrop of Raksha Bandhan ceremony. organised by Rabindranath Tagore to as a mark of togetherness between people from Hindu and Muslim communities when the British Empire had decided to divide Bengal in 1905.
Under the present situation when the number of COVID-19 cases are increasing in the state, top brass of the department is considering that there can be nothing important than distributing masks among people on the auspicious day of Raksha Bandhan as around each of the 5.5 lakh people will get a mask and at the same time it will encourage people in using the The masks will be distributed at different parts of the state starting from the city.
This comes when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has taken steps to provide free-of-cost masks to every resident of the state across the state. Already order for 3 crore such masks have been placed and these three-layered masks will have "Bangla Amar Maa" printed on it.
The catch line "Bangla Amar Maa" was scripted by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to uphold the glory of the state and genuinity of the quality of the mask. "Government of West Bengal" will also be printed in smaller font size just below the catch line.