Travel restrictions begin in Jharkhand, e-pass portal crashes

RANCHI: The Jharkhand government on Sunday imposed restrictions on the movement of vehicles and people within the state to stop the chain of Covid-19 transmission and issued e-passes for people who need to travel for emergency purposes.
On the first day of the curbs which will continue till May 27, the government's online portal that issues the e-passes crashed owing to heavy traffic, the state transport department said.
Talking to TOI, transport officer Kiran Kumari Pasi said, "The portal was designed to generate 200 e-passes in a second. Since it was the first day, we had an overwhelming amount of online traffic and the portal's server was down because of it. The technical glitches are now fixed and it's working fine."
He said since Saturday, over 2.36 lakh e-passes have been issued through the portal.
In a recent order by the state department of home, jail and disaster management, residents of the state will have to procure e-passes to go out of their homes to buy essential commodities till May 27. The passes will be valid for three hours from the issuing time.
Both state and central government employees and those working in the essential service sector can get a one-time pass which will be valid till May 27. Hearses, ambulances and private vehicles being used for medical emergencies and vaccination have been exempted from procuring the passes, the order said.
All vehicles entering Jharkhand those travelling between the districts will need to display the passes.
Meanwhile, Pawan Agarwal, a Kokar resident, who has been trying to procure a pass, said, "I tried for nearly four hours but failed to get a pass. The portal was so slow that I gave up trying after a point."