Kolkata: In a bid to ensure that not a single more person gets infected with COVID-19 in the red zone, the Howrah district administration has started thermal screening of each person visiting
markets, including the vegetable-sellers.
This comes after the administration came to know about the death of a vegetable-seller due to COVID-19 in Delhi's Azadnagar vegetable mandi.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has directed the district administration to impose strong lockdown at the sensitive areas in the district, so that it turns into an orange zone within 14 days. A red zone will turn orange if not a single COVID-19 case gets reported in the area in 14 days.
Besides imposing "strong lockdown" in these areas, the district administration and the police are taking a series of steps to ensure that people stay at home. At the same time, the administration is also making arrangements to screen people for symptoms.
Thermal checking has been started at all markets in the area under the jurisdiction of Howrah Municipal Corporation. Since morning, police personnel wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) were found carrying out thermal checking of people visiting the marketplaces. All vegetable-sellers at the markets are also being checked.
A section of employees of HMC have also been engaged to carry out regular thermal checking of the people who set up stalls at the markets.
A senior police officer said: "The step has been taken as many people visit marketplaces and come in contact with vegetable-sellers. It is crucial to ensure regular checking of the vegetable-sellers and people visiting markets so that necessary steps to segregate them can be taken at the initial stage if any symptom is found in any of them."
Nine industry and commercial bodies are also carrying out regular sanitisation of different marketplaces and also distributing masks and gloves among vegetable-sellers.
Almost all markets in the HMC area have either been shifted to a spacious place or areas of the same have been expanded, whereas two markets - Haraganj Bazar and Pilkhana Market - have been closed for the time being.
The police have also ensured delivery of essentials to 25,000 families at Malipanchghara and Pilkhana area where markets are completely closed. Around 300 volunteers from local clubs and different committees have been engaged to ensure home delivery of essentials from nearby grocery shops, following lockdown norms.