With Odisha witnessing an unprecedented rise in daily COVID cases, the Puri district administration has decided to not allow residents outside Puri district to perform the last rites at Swargadwar.
The new regulation will come into effect from Monday and remain until further orders, informed district Sub-Collector, Bhabataran Sahoo on Saturday.
Speaking to OTV, Sahoo said, “It is not possible to know who is infected with COVID and who is not. Even some staff at Swargadwar have contracted Coronavirus. So, keeping the ongoing developments in mind, we have decided to bar non-Puri residents from the cremation place till the situation improves.”
“Only the residents of Puri district will be allowed to cremate those who died of non-Covid reasons at Swargadwar. They domiciles will have to produce address proof to avail services here,” he said.
He said the curbs are temporary in nature and will be lifted it as soon as the situation improved.
It is worth mentioning here that the SJTA has already announced to close the Srimandir from January 10 (Monday) till January 31.
With the State government stressing on the need for tighter control measures to arrest the rapid surge of virus cases, the SJTA and Chatisa Nijoga decided to close the doors of Srimandir for public during a meeting, informed Puri district Collector Samarth Verma on Friday.