Patna: Coming down heavily on the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government, the Patna High Court on Monday said that a statewide lockdown is urgently needed to control the COVID situation. A division bench of Justices Chakradhari Sharan Singh and Mohit Kumar Shah, asked advocate general Lalit Kishore to talk to the CM regarding the total shutdown. The bench, which is monitoring the situation on a daily basis asserted that the Nitish government must either impose a lockdown or it will have to pass an appropriate order. Furthermore, it asked the advocate general to apprise the court about the government’s decision on Tuesday.
“It has been emerging that the state government is heading toward total failure. There is no action plan in the context of an uncontrollable surge of corona infection in Bihar. Whatever plan you have submitted, it’s not up to the mark and no effective steps have been taken. Despite repeated orders you are not doing anything, Everything is an eyewash”, the court observed.
The high court has also asked the state government to form a war room and deploy five specialists to monitor the situation in Bihar.
Following the tough remarks on the state government, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has called an urgent meeting on Tuesday wherein he is expected to take a decision on complete lockdown. Yesterday, he had visited some places in Patna to assess the situation on ground. The inspection tour of the Chief Minister has big implications. When he visited some places in Patna a week ago, he imposed evening curfew in the state from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Reports have said that he might now take a decision on lockdown.
Meanwhile, Bihar breached the five lakh-mark of infections with 11,407 fresh COVID cases. 82 fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 2821 in the state.
The caseload of the state went up to 5,09,047, with capital Patna being the worst-hit. Out of 82 new deaths, Patna accounted for 24 casualties while Muzaffarpur reported 13 fatalities, Madhepura (6) and West Champaran (5).
Among the 11,407 new cases, Patna’s share was 2028. Other major COVID-hit districts are Gaya with 662 cases, Muzaffarpur (653) and Begusarai (510). Meanwhile, sources in the East Central Railway (ECR) zone said that a total of 4654 staff have tested positive so far while 123 of them have succumbed to the virus.