Bhubaneswar, March 28: At an extremely stressful time when the Odisha Government is on a war front to prevent the possible spread of Corona pandemic, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has intensifies sanitation and cleanliness drives across the city involving disinfecting the slums, regular fogging of wards in phase-wise manner, street sweeping and cleaning of major roads and inside ones, bush cutting, sprinkling of bleaching powder along roads, garbage points and temporary transit station. These activities of BMC have been undertaken with directions from BMC Commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary.

While BMC has started the slum-level disinfection from yesterday from Mangala Basti near Unit-IV area, today the initiative covered slum habitation Kedarpalli and Tati basti near Bapuji Nagar. The unit with disinfectant and spray machines apart from spraying the chemicals is also making the people aware about the COVID-19 pandemic and telling them to stay at home and practice social distancing as advised by the State Government.

As per fogging is concerned Haata Sahi, Lingaraj PS area, Lingaraj Nagar, Gouri Nagar, near Bhajana Mandap and Tara Sundari Road in Ward No. 60, Kargil Basti and Gopal Krushna Nagar in Ward No. 6 and Jadupur Stadium in Ward No 64 were covered. It can be mentioned here that on daily basis on an average 12 wards are getting sanitized through fogging by BMC. By the specific work-plan of BMC every ward will be fogged for three times and during 5 am and 7 am in the morning hours and 6 pm and 8 pm during evening hours the fogging work is done by the civic body.

BMC has deployed six fogging machines (Thermal Induced Fogging Applicator or TIFA) and four machines are under deployment through rent for the programme. The largest civic body of the state aims to finish the programme by the first week of April.

Likewise, street sweeping and garbage cleaning along major roads were carried out in Acharya Vihar Square, Laxmi Vihar, Desaraj Temple, Adimata Colony, Press Chaka in Ward No 12, Basudev Temple in Ward No 60, Badagada Mangala and Bhoi Sahi in Ward No. 44, Tapobana Basti near Dharma Vihar and Siddhi Vihar in Ward No. 63.

Similarly bush cutting and street sweeping were done in Kapileswar in Ward No. 59, Bhima Tangi in Ward No. 61, Sundarpada in Ward No. 67, Chintamaniswara and Biswanath Nagar in Ward No. 45, Palaspalli in Ward No. 52, Near ISBT Baramunda and Khandagiri in Ward No 49, Gandhi Basti in Ward No. 27 and Railway Market Gadakana in Ward No. 9 areas.

Last, but not the least sprinkling of bleaching powder was done at Satya Nagar in Ward No. 22, Madhab Basti in Ward No 24 and Ruchika Market in Ward No. 49 respectively along with other areas across the State Capital.