Puri: The Puri district administration has clamped strict restrictions on tourists coming from other States witnessing a surge in Covid-19 infections. Puri Collector Samarth Verma on Tuesday said that strict surveillance is now in place at the railway station and Covid negative report has been made mandatory for those people coming from five high-risk States in the country.
“We have made negative RT-PCR test report (72 hours before start of journey) mandatory for people coming to Puri from 5 States including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala,” said Verma.
After conducting a review of the Covid-19 situation, Verma further said, “Those coming to Puri without Covid-19 negative report (RT-PCR test) will have to undergo a 7-day home isolation. The norm will not be applicable for those who have taken both the doses of Covid-19 vaccine.”
The Puri Collector informed that special provision of conducting Covid tests of those coming from these 12 States have also been made at the railway station.
A senior district administration official informed that all the hoteliers have been asked to ensure to provide accommodation facilities to tourists from these 5 states with negative RT-PCR test report, final vaccination certificate.
“We are constituting an enforcement team to ensure that all these protocols are strictly followed,” Verma added.
Keeping in view the upsurge in COVID-19 cases several states, the Odisha government last month had asked authorities to take measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
Earlier, the passengers from 12 states – Maharashtra, Kerala, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Punjab, Delhi, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh were being screened as per the previous order of the State government.
It is pertinent to mention here that Odisha is also witnessing a surge in Covid-19 cases for the past couple of weeks. In the past 24 hours, 588 new cases were reported from different parts of the State.