No Lockdown, Shutdown Passes; Commissionerate Police Seeks List Of Office-Goers

Bhubaneswar: In an effort to curb unauthorised movement of office-goers during lockdown and shutdown in Odisha, the Commissionerate Police has directed company authorities to submit the list of their staff.

The move has been initiated to check the misuse of identity cards by staff of IT, bank and other industries in twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, said police commissioner Soumendra Priyadarshi.

Priyadarshi said the Commissionerate police has not issued any pass to people this time for movement during enforcement of lockdown and shutdown in the Twin City.    

“One of the major steps in controlling the spread of Covid-19 infection is to curb crowding. Second measure is restricting unnecessary movement of people. Therefore, we have intensified the enforcement in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack,” Priyadarshi said.

He said the State government has provided a major window to several activities while issuing guidelines for lockdown and shutdown, this time. IT companies, banks and other industries have been allowed to function with a limited staff. “However, often some staff of these companies are making unnecessary movement freely during the lockdown and shutdown by showing their ID cards. Therefore, we have urged authorities of the services industries to furnish the list of their staff they have allowed to come to their offices to the deputy commissioner of police (DCP). Besides, they have been asked to issue authorisation letter to their employees for movement during the restrictions,” Priyadarshi added.

The CP expressed hope that the new move will restraint the unauthorised movement of people during the lockdown and shutdown.