The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Tuesday directed all swimming pools operated by private entities in the State Capital city to immediately close down operations.
As per the order issued by the BMC, only government-run swimming pools which are being used for practice of sports persons will be allowed to function under strict adherence to COVID protocols.
The civic body's restriction on swimming pools comes in the wake of massive surge in COVID cases, especially the highly-infectious Omicron variant of the virus, in the city and across whole of Odisha.
It may be noted here that the Odisha government has already issued various restrictions and revised the Night Curfew timings asking all kinds of shops, gyms, spas and saloons to close their operations by 9 pm every day.
The government has however left it with to the local administrative authorities to decide on any extra curbs to arrest the cases of the virus.