Relief for Beliaghata, Patuli as Kolkata containment zone count dips to 23

KOLKATA: Most of the areas from two major containment zones in the city — Beliaghata and Patuli-Mukundapur — have managed to come out of the list. The new containment list — released on Monday night — has reduced the containment zones from 13 in each locations to merely five each. This helped the city’s containment zones take the sharpest drop since July. From 39, the city now has 23 containment zones.
Even as overall 19 containment zones dropped from the list, three new areas have been added to it.All three, incidentally, are located in south Kolkata. While Panditya Road in Ballygunge has been a problem zone — moving in and out of the list — Burdwan Road, too, was on the list earlier. Just like Bansdroni last week, the new entrant to the list is Rahim Ostagar Road that is located close to Jodhpur Park. For the fourth consecutive time, no new zone from central Kolkata made it to the list.

Interestingly, for the first time in the past two months since the containment zones in its present form was introduced, no slums have featured on the list. There are four complexes and four flats on the list. The rest are mixed zones in nature. “The fact that no slums are on list despite cases reported from densely populated areas like Beliaghata and Govindapur shows that our slum model is still working,” said a piolice officer. This includes an intense lockdown and door-to-door testings.
The intense testings, both RT-PCR and antigen tests, have showed results in Patuli, Mukundapur and Talpukur. “We had found no new case at Patuli I and D blocks. The testing on auto drivers, fruit and vegetable vendors and guesthouse workers has helped us contain the virus,” said an officer.
At Beliaghata, it was all about targeted intervention at the slums and the high-rises. “In the initial days, controlling access at bigger markets like Rashmoni Bazar and Chaulpatty helped check the spread. Now that Covid has reached the apartments, we are choosing the most affected zones by rotation — one by one — instead of shutting down the entire area,” said an officer at Lalbazar.
Amidst all the good news, the addition of Ballygunge and Alipore to the list has upset some senior citizens who say they have taken all possible measures to keep themselves safe.