NAGAON, March 25 - Following declaration of a complete lockdown by till April 14 by the Centre, a section of businessmen in the district has increased the prices of various essential commodities by upto 20 to 30 per cent of their original prices, thereby creating artificial scarcity of the items.
The artificial scarcity created by the unscrupulous traders has drawn sharp reaction from socially conscious members of the tax-paying public.
Not surprisingly rather, the district Food and Civil Supplies Department is inert as usual and is yet to take needful punitive action against the opportunists till the time of filing this report.
The Traffic Police in the meantime closed down the commercial outlets of the town through public announcement.
Deputy Commissioner Jadav Saikia on Tuesday said in connection with the spiralling of prices of essential commodities, that he had immediately instructed the officials of the department concerned to ensure lawful action against such opportunists and also ordered a physical check on stocks in their godowns.
In the meantime, Bebejia police along with a special medical team on Monday night picked up a person along with seven other family members suspecting infection by the virus at his father-in-law�s house at Nagaon Dakhinpat village. They had reportedly arrived from Gujarat and were subsequently brought to Nagaon Civil Hospital where their health status was checked and they were found Covid-19 negative.
In an interaction with this correspondent, Dr Atul Pator, Joint Director of Health Services said that although the man and other members of his family had tested negative, yet they were referred to the GMCH as the person under reference was suffering from some heart problem since quite sometime now.
Dr Pator confirmed that there was no case of Covid-19 in the district, though the health status of more than 500 people coming back to the district from outside the State had been screened in Nagaon Civil Hospital.
Meanwhile, former Congress minister Rokibul Hussain distributed masks, hand sanitisers, hand gloves and medicated shampoos among the people of Samaguri and journalists� community in the town.
The former minister on Monday evening visited the office of Nagaon Press Club and the office of Nagaon Electronic Media Association and distributed all the medicated items among the journalists of the district.
Dr Surajit Bhagowati, Principal of Nagaon Anandoram Dhekial Phookan College too distributed masks and hand sanitisers developed by the Department of Herbal Science and Technology of ADP College among the journalists of Nagaon Press Club.
