{"id":2898,"date":"2020-11-18T10:30:33","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T05:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper?p=2898"},"modified":"2020-11-18T12:43:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T07:13:41","slug":"beacons-of-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/2020\/11\/18\/beacons-of-light\/","title":{"rendered":"BEACONS OF LIGHT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having reassuringly impressed the business community in Bhubaneswar on Dhanteras, the BMC can surely teach a thing or two to its counterparts elsewhere<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Siddhartha Tripathy<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the days leading up to Dhanteras and Diwali this month, there was a palpable sense of unease among many sections of the business and trading community in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. At a time of the year when excitement among retailers in the city reaches fever pitch amidst festivities, they were worried sick over ensuring adherence to Covid-19 pandemic protocol during what ought to be a busy period.<\/p>\n

By far the most concerned among them were jewellers, who were faced with the unenviable task of maintaining social distancing norms at their shops and showrooms during the Dhanteras rush without risking rubbing up their customers the wrong way.<\/p>\n

The stakes were higher than ever before. There had been a complete collapse in business with a succession of lockdowns induced by the coronavirus outbreak since mid-March. Even after the end of that dreadfully dreary phase, weekend curfews had hit them hard as their showrooms remained shuttered on Saturdays and Sundays \u2013 when most of their customers typically do their jewellery shopping.<\/p>\n

Despite six phases of \u201cUnlock\u201d so far, business has been far from the usual in the jewellery sector. After all, the Covid-19 pandemic is not quite over, and neither are the circumstances it has brought along.<\/p>\n

Besides, the sector sees peak sales only thrice annually: on Akshaya Tritiya, in the wedding season and during the Dhanteras-Diwali period. As the pandemic had majorly impacted their business during the first two occasions this year, just like Cyclone Fani had done last year, jewellers in the twin city were praying for a positive conclusion to an otherwise hopeless year.<\/p>\n

Their prayers did not go unanswered.<\/p>\n

On the day of Dhanteras, divine intervention came in the form of Bhubaneswar Municipality Corporation (BMC), whose squads visited jewellery stores around the city to ensure that pandemic norms, particularly social distancing, were followed.<\/p>\n

One of the most reputable jewellers of the state revealed: \u201cIt would have been very complicated for us to ask all our customers to follow social distancing rules. Some might have taken offence or gotten upset, and that is the last thing we would ever want to happen. But with the BMC people coming over, joining our staff, and politely ensuring adherence to social distancing by everyone present in the showroom, it all became very simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expressing relief and gratitude for the BMC squad\u2019s efforts on the day, another jeweller noted that they \u201cwere out only with an intention to ensure social distancing and not to impose fines\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the right way to go, because our Chief Minister has himself urged authorities several times to support business and economic activities during this tough period,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The state capital\u2019s business community at large applauded BMC Commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary for his positive attitude and approach to dealing with the challenging situation that Dhanteras posed amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

A jeweller from downtown Bhubaneswar explained: \u201cHats off to the BMC Commissioner for the way he got it done. We consider ourselves very fortunate, as we heard stories about municipality authorities in other cities sealing showrooms and penalising the owners. What such officials don\u2019t care to realize is how their orders to seal shops on Dhanteras inflict huge losses on already struggling businesses and render customers unable to buy the puja items that they do only once a year. Now, anybody with power can take such strict action. But real credit is due to those who can use their powers productively for the welfare of the society. Those municipality officials elsewhere have much to learn from Mr Chaudhary, who has shown how to manage a crowd without needing to shut down shops or slap fines.\u201d<\/p>\n

The successful management of Dhanteras and Diwali has also been widely hailed as yet another victory of the Naveen Patnaik administration against Covid-19.<\/p>\n

One of the leading retailers in Bhubaneswar averred: \u201cOver the past two decades, our state has benefited immensely from a positive leadership of Naveen babu. But what we have seen over these past 7-8 months, and especially during this Dhanteras-Diwali time, is how positive-minded officers can also make a world of difference to the state\u2019s health and economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

That retailer\u2019s notion has been gaining currency.<\/p>\n

The way 5T Secretary V.K. Pandian has been zealously overseeing the execution of the Mo Sarkar initiative \u2013 as part of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik\u2019s grand vision for all-round development in Odisha through teamwork, technology, transparency, and timeliness \u2013 has not been lost on the state\u2019s political observers and its people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BMC acted on Dhanteras very much the way Mr Pandian would like the city\u2019s administrative machinery to be \u2013 ensuring smooth running of economic activities while maintaining Covid norms,\u201d a recently retired bureaucrat noted.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the public has also noticed and appreciated how Commissioner of Police, Sudhanshu Sarangi, has been so effectively leading the untiring efforts of his team to control the spread of the deadly virus in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.<\/p>\n

Thanks to such people running the Government of Odisha, the light of hope burns bright in the state. And even amid these uncertain times, one thing is certain: We are in safe hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having reassuringly impressed the business community in Bhubaneswar on Dhanteras, the BMC can surely teach a thing or two to its counterparts elsewhere Siddhartha Tripathy In the days leading up to Dhanteras and Diwali this month, there was a palpable sense of unease among many sections of the business and trading community in the twin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-stories","category-odisha"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2898"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2908,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions\/2908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}