People of Aralia in Agartala became restive after remaining in 14-day long Containment Zone. With number of corona positive cases is mounting, administration announced an area of Aralia as Containment Zone. However, people – sandwiched between Covid scare and loss of livelihood – are in distress.
Venting frustration, Aralia people are raising demand to withdraw the restrictions and allow them to return to normalcy.
“After administration declared it a Containment Zone, our movement was severely restricted. We have suffered huge losses in terms if earning our livelihood and many of us are facing threat of retrenchment due to long absence in our work places”, a group of agitated villagers said.
“The life and livelihood of many families are at stake. Most of the population included daily wagers or people working in unorganized sectors. In this scenario, the 14 days containment period had already dealt blow to them and if it continued for another spell many of them would be replaced or retrenched from their workplaces”, local people of the area apprehended.
Some of them also kept on saying that we did not require any help from the government for now but needed to be free from the restrictions. “We have got enough support from the authorities. Only thing that we require right now is to get free of the heavy restrictions which have started shrinking our earning sources”, a local woman added. Some of the locals also pointed out that if they were not allowed to earn as to how they would be able to repay the loans and borrowings they had.
However, sources in the SDM sadar said, “There are no scopes to interfere in the guidelines. If the District Magistrate declares the area as an orange zone, only then some activities can be allowed inside the area otherwise, we have to keep the area locked”.