Chief minister Naveen Patnaik
BHUBANESWAR: Setting a target of zero infection, chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday urged people to follow Covid guidelines rigorously to achieve the goal and to avoid another lockdown, especially in view of the recent surge in cases in different states.
“With your cooperation, the pandemic situation is under control in Odisha. The World Health Organization (WHO) has lauded our initiative in containing the spread of virus.,” he said
“There should not be any complacency even though daily infection rate is below 100 at present. The pandemic is not over yet,” Naveen said in a video message. It comes on the eve of Odisha detecting its first Covid case a year back. Stating that the pandemic situation in Maharashtra, Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh has worsened and part of Maharashtra is under lockdown, Naveen said normalcy has returned to Odisha because of the sacrifices and cooperation of the people.
BHUBANESWAR: Success of operation Silent Viper, which had led to the arrest of 1999 Baranga gang-rape case’s main accused Bibekananda Biswal last month, buoyed the commissionerate police to arrest fugitive Bikram Aditya Jena, an accused in the 2008 murder of famous music director Sumant Mohanty. Negligence by Mancheswar police over a decade had helped Bikram to evade arrest.
The special squad’s assistant commissioner of police Sanjeev Satpathy and his team received specific input about Bikram hiding in Bhubaneswar for the last few days. Bikram, who did diploma in computer engineering in Hyderabad, had fled to Pune after allegedly committing the ghastly crime on October 9, 2008. The case’s prime accused Manas Ranjan Vedanta and three others Sushil Samantray, Sushil Jena and Subhakant Jena were arrested on October 11, 2008 and are currently on bail.
At present, only 3,500 electric vehicles are plying in the state
BHUBANESWAR: The state government has proposed to offer attractive incentives to buyers of electric vehicles. According to the draft Electric Vehicle (EV) policy notified last month, the buyers are likely to get a 15% subsidy on purchase of electric vehicles.
Two-wheeler buyers would get a maximum of Rs 5,000 subsidy, while it would be Rs 12,000 for three-wheelers and Rs 1 lakh for four-wheelers. “Government employees would get 100% interest free loan to purchase electric vehicles,” the draft policy notification stated.
The draft policy has proposed that government departments and offices and public sector undertakings should give preference to hire battery-operated vehicles for official use. Municipal authorities will provide subsidized parking for all personal EVs. “Towns and cities will prepare city parking plans to encourage provisions for on-street parking spaces for EVs with subsidized fee and charging
BHUBANESWAR: The capital city will have two more five-star hotels with the state government on Friday cleared eight new investment proposals with total investment potential of Rs 1214 crore. These projects will create over 2400 new employment opportunities.
These projects in sectors like manufacturing, plastic, food processing and hospitality were cleared by the state-level single window clearance authority (SLSWCA) headed by chief secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra.
The two five-star hotels, which received SLSWCA nod, will be set up by ITC Limited by investing Rs 141 crore and another by Falcon Real Estate Private Limited with an investment of Rs 120 crore.
Proposal of Britannia Industries Limited for expansion of its manufacturing unit at Khurda also got the state government’s nod. The company will invest around Rs 94 crore. The chief secretary-led panel also gave go ahead to another project by Sarvesh Refractories private limited for expansion its Sundargarh unit, that wil
Representative image.
BHUBANESWAR: A spurned lover has landed behind the bars on Friday for asking Nayapalli police in Bhubaneswar to convince his girlfriend to marry him and attempted to set himself ablaze inside the police station when the cops turned down his demand.
Ajaya Dora (20), a resident of Ganapati Nagar, reached Nayapalli police station around 8 pm. He created a flutter and drew the attention of the police personnel to his bizarre demand, asking them to convince his girlfriend to marry him, else he would immolate himself inside the police station. Dora pulled out a bottle containing petrol from his bag and poured it on his body. As he was about to take out a matchbox from his pocket, the cops overpowered him and foiled his self-immolation bid.