Kolkata roads to get new look before Durga Puja
Damaged roads in Kolkata will get a coat of patchwork before Durga Puja and for that, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has asked all agencies to complete the work by October 15, a civic body official said. Repairing roads before Durga Puja is an annual affair, but it will be for the first time so many roads will be repaired in the city because no work could be carried out before the monsoon due to the Covid-19 lockdown. The patchwork will provide a temporary cover to craters and potholes. Such repairs do not last beyond a few months or even less if it rains, said civic body engineers.
Mumbai new transit point for London-Kol flights
Air India, which had promised a direct Kolkata-London evacuation flight under the Vande Bharat Mission (VBM), has decided to operate it as a hopping flight with a stopover in Mumbai till the Heathrow Airport authorities allot a slot for the non-stop flight, said an official of the national carrier. On Thursday, the direct flight could not be operated owing to last-minute non-availability of the slot at the Heathrow airport in the UK. As a result, the flight got delayed by four hours, and it eventually took off as a hopping flight with a three-hour stopover in Delhi. The next flight from London is scheduled to arrive in Kolkata on Sunday and take off the same day. Both flights will operate through Mumbai, said the official.
Bengal zoos to re-open from October 2
Zoos in West Bengal, shut since March 17 in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, will re-open from October 2, with a series of guidelines released by the state government. Under the new guidelines, tickets have to be booked online. Wearing of face cover and following all norms of social distancing is mandatory for all guests. Officials at the Alipore Zoo said they were planning to cap the daily visitor count at 5,000. The cap will be revised in the peak months as the Covid situation is dynamic, said an official of the zoo. The zoo in Darjeeling and Bengal Safari Park in Siliguri will also re-open from October 2.
JU allots rs 16 lakh to buy students’ smartphones
A Jadavpur University committee has allocated Rs 16 lakh out of a corpus Rs 21 lakh to buy smartphones and data packs for students this month so that no one misses out on digital education and exams, said an official of the university. On Thursday, a 10-member committee held a second meeting and decided that 200 students would be bought smartphones with each set costing Rs 6,000. While Rs 12 lakh would be spent on buying smartphones, Rs 4 lakh of the allocation would utilise buying data packs for 800 students, said the official. The students will be bought data packs for three months, and the university will have their packs recharged after students share details of their service providers.