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Surat Municipal Corporation has decided to close down malls, departmental stores, gardens and beaches on Sundays. (Representational) The Surat Municipal Corporation has decided to close down malls, departmental stores, gardens and beaches on Sundays, till further notice, in Rander and Athwa zones of the city that have been reporting a surge in Covid cases.
Surat city has been reporting a daily average of 100 Covid-19 cases for the past few days. Surat city — the second highest populated city in the state — with eight municipal zones reported 90 fresh cases of Covid-19 on Monday, of which 27 were reported from Athwa zone. On Sunday, the city reported 125 cases from SMC area and 20 from the district. On Sunday, 40 cases were reported from Athwa Zone.
Deputy Health Commissi-oner of SMC, Dr Ashish Naik, said, “With such large numbers of cases coming from Athwa zone, we sent our teams to public places registering high footfall and appealed to the administrators to keep malls and departmental stores closed on Sunday. We have not issued any notification in this regard but appealed to them and they agreed to comply. We have also talked to the police department and they have put up barricades prohibiting the entry of visitors on the main road leading to the Dumas and Suvali beaches. Only the residents of that areas are allowed.”
A large number of departmental stores, malls, gardens and roadside eateries are located in Athwa zone, which is a weekend hub.
Roadside eateries will also remain closed on Sundays, while restaurants have been allowed to continue their business only through take away.
According to an official with the SMC health department, similar curbs have been introduced in Rander zone also that has several departmental stores and malls.
As many as 18 people from other states also tested positive for coronavirus in Athwa, including five from Rajasthan, eight from Maharashtra, and the rest from Goa and Rameswaram.
Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in the state, 54,596 positive cases of the total 2,72,640 cases, were reported from Surat district (including SMC) with 979 deaths. The recovery rate of has been 96.58 and at present, 35 patients are admitted to hospitals.
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