CUTTACK: Tension prevailed at Old Rausapatana containment zone in the city on Sunday after residents staged a protest over alleged mismanagement in providing essential services by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC). They demanded immediate lifting of containment zone restrictions from the area.

Residents alleged that the restrictions have devastated the livelihood of daily wage labourers and small businessmen in the zone. The patients, who are being taken to Covid hospital, are not being provided with proper medication or food. This apart, there is exorbitant hike in prices of essential commodities being supplied to them, said Smita Sen, a resident of Old Rausapatana.

Later, the civic body authorities reduced the area of containment zone with immediate effect. “After 18 rounds of active surveillance and contact tracing, it is noticed that positive cases are only confined in a small areas. So in the larger public interest, containment area of Old Rausapatana is hereby reduced,” stated order of the CMC.

On July 13, the CMC had declared Old Rausapatana in Ward no 27 as a containment zone following the detection of five positive cases in the area.