Faced with crisis, Rourkela Municipal Corporation’s resilience shows

ROURKELA: Faced with the unprecedented crisis posed by the COVID-19 second wave, the Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) is trying to learn from past shortcomings and determined to contain the pandemic. Like the first wave, Rourkela city continues to be the nucleus of virus spread in the district.

The RMC came in for a lot of criticism in handling the surge in cases in the city. As of now, it accounts for 76.57 per cent of 7,536 active cases in Sundargarh. But in a display of resilience, the civic body along with help from the district administration is putting its best foot forward to bring the situation under control. 

Well-placed sources in RMC said the challenges are varied and many, but employees are making sincere efforts in their assigned jobs, working extra hours with no fixed routines and have risen to the occasion gracefully.

Within a short span of time, it activated three Covid Care Centres with combined bed strength of 1,078 including 117 with oxygen support and 12 with oxygen concentrators.

They said 400 more CCC beds with oxygen support would come up shortly, adding that last year’s experience in running CCCs has helped a lot. The civic body is also running a 24X7 dedicated help line. 

This apart, RMC has 9 fixed sample collection and testing centres, 7 mobile centres and five such centres managed by private parties.

There are 20 Rapid Response Teams (RRT) to cater to the large number of people under home isolation. As per official records, of 5,771 active cases,  5,577 patients are in home isolation as on Thursday.