By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 18 Jul: Leader of the Opposition, Dr Indira Hridayesh has opposed the two day lockdown in several districts of Uttarakhand. In a statement issued today, she alleged that the lockdown was being pursued to ape other states that were enforcing the lockdown again. She said that the lockdown was bound to affect livelihood of the poor and small traders and in particularly of street vendors since they depended on daily sale to earn their daily livelihood. She added that the poor and the small traders including the street vendors had already been severely affected by the Corona led lockdown and were financially very stressed. Two day lockdown would certainly stress them further financially.
Hridayesh claimed that the lockdown was not a solution to rising number of Corona cases in the state. The government ought to increase the testing level and augment the medical infrastructure and human resources to deal with the pandemic and not merely indulge in enforcing lockdowns. The government needed to focus more to augment its health services and infrastructure, she stressed.
At the same time, traders in Nainital have also opposed the weekend lockdown of two days in tourist places like Nainital. They have described the government move as anti people. The traders have said that it was usually during the weekends that tourist hill stations like Nainital and Mussoorie received maximum tourists and therefore it was imprudent to enforce lockdown in such places on weekends. The traders in places like Nainital were already facing unprecedented financial crisis due to Corona and under such circumstances, to enforce a lockdown on weekends was akin to adding to their woes by killing their chances to earn money on weekends.