Bhubaneswar: With the improvement in Covid-19 situation across Odisha, the State Government has withdrawn the order issued authorizing the Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) to permit vehicles engaged in COVID-19 duty, to use such multi-coloured beacons.
The Commerce and Transport Department has issued a fresh notification for this purpose after the SRC has revoked the order or guidelines issued for COVID containment measures.
“Since COVID situation has improved overall, there may not be any further need for allowing vehicles to use multi-coloured red, blue & white lights for the COVID duty,” Principal Secretary, Commerce & Transport, Bishnupada Sethi said in the notification.
Therefore, Government do hereby rescind the Commerce and Transport (Transport) Department Notification No. 6954 dated 28.09.2020 regarding authorization to the Special Relief Commissioner, Odisha to notify and permit the vehicles engaged in COVID-19 pandemic and disaster management duties, to use such multi-coloured red, blue & white lights on their top, he said.
As per norms, the vehicles on office duty which are designated for the emergency and disaster management duties can be allowed to use multi coloured red, blue and white light on its top.
The duties relating to control of fire, the duties by police, defence forces or paramilitary forces for maintenance of law and order and the duties relating to management of natural disasters including earthquake, flood, landslide, cyclone, tsunami and manmade disasters including nuclear disaster, chemical disaster and biological disaster.
On Thursday, the State recorded nine fresh coronavirus cases, taking the total active cases to 104. With 15 more patients having recuperated, the total number of recoveries now stood at 12,78,687.
The daily positivity rate was 0.04 percent and the infections were detected out of 21,195 samples tested. A child was among those who were afflicted with the disease, it added. The state had registered eight infections and a death on Wednesday.
The toll remained at 9,124 and these have been confirmed as Covid deaths after an audit. Fifty-three other coronavirus patients have died due to comorbidities so far, according to data.
The state has logged 12,87,968 cases, out of which 12,78,687 people have recovered so far.