Punjab Police distribute nearly 1.9 lakh food packets across state

The Punjab Police on Friday scaled up their curfew relief operations across the state through the distribution of nearly 1.9 lakh food packets and set up medical camps in various districts, while facilitating the movement of about 3,000 trucks and lorries carrying essentials into the State across various Inter-State border points in the past 24 hours.

A press release from Punjab's Information and Public Relations Department, said, "Even as the police continued to clear the 1600-odd applications received from individuals for 2-pass, under the facility launched yesterday, they were also working on introducing new kinds of passes, such as an Inter-State Critical Emergency Transit Pass, covering the States of Punjab, Delhi, UP, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and UT of Chandigarh, as the Baddi Industry Pass to facilitate travel."

"A total of 42,515 police personnel across ranks, along with volunteers, were on the ground today to enforce curfew and maintain essential supplies as well as law and order. A total of 79 FIRs were registered and 104 persons arrested in 24 hours till Friday evening for curfew violation and violation of quarantine guidelines," the press release said.

DGP Dinkar Gupta said the 112 police emergency number that was yesterday transformed into curfew helpline had received 17,000 calls in 24 hours, of which 10,699 calls related to queries regarding COVID-19 and or other information.

To further streamline operations, all CPs and SSPs of the districts have nominated designated officers for specific tasks, such as District War Room, District Control Room, maintenance of essential services, maintaining a smooth flow of traffic in the district including the national/state highways, district police media liaison officer, and hospital/medical liaison officer.

It may be recalled that the Digital e-Pass facility, a web-based application, was launched by Punjab Police yesterday across the State for providing about 9 different kinds of e-passes for different kinds of categories, such as Hospital, Medical related issues, Mediapersons, Movement of essential goods, essential services, health workers, government officials, vendors (fruits, vegetables, groceries), delivery workers (grocery, fruit, vegetable, restaurant, chemist).

Regarding the distribution of food, Gupta said of the 188317 food packets distributed today, 134815 lakh were of cooked food and 53502 were dry food packets. A total of 10205 food packets were distributed in Amritsar City and 10,000 in Amritsar Rural, while in Bathinda, 950 packets were distributed, besides 500 in Batala, 9540 in Bathinda, 2400 in Faridkot, 5200 in Fatehgarh Sahib, 3000 in Fazilka and 4500 in Ferozepur.

Likewise, 1950 food packets were delivered in Gurdaspur, 9500 in Hoshiarpur, 12,000 in Jalandhar City, 6055 in Jalandhar Rural, 1550 in Kapurthala, 4000 in Khanna, 17000 in Ludhiana City and 13,600 in Ludhiana Rural.

A maximum of 28000 food items was provided to 28,000 people in Mansa, while 1100 packets were given out in Moga, 7500 in Patiala, 15,000 in Pathankot, 3667 in Ropar, 8000 in Sangrur, 9000 in SAS Nagar, 1000 in SBS Nagar, 7000 in Sri Muktsar Sahib and 9600 in Tarn Taran.