Ujiba Gondaliya with her extended family
Surat: Be it scorching heat or heavy rains, she herself ploughed the farm and handled the bullock cart in her village in Rajkot for decades. Now, at the age of 105, Ujiba has successfully destructed corona too.
Tested positive after her 55-year-old son Govind Gondaliya contracted the infection, Ujiba was admitted to a private hospital on April 11. Ujiba kept telling her son that she does not need any treatment and will have no regret even if she dies. But a few days later, Ujiba kept telling doctors of the hospital, “Corona cannot do anything to me, I will go home fit and fine.”
Surat: The investigation of the case involving sale of post-expiry date remdesivir injections revealed that the accused Divyesh Patel destroyed two vials by throwing it into dustbin. He also revealed the name of third accomplice to crime branch sleuths during the first day of interrogation after he was remanded to police custody on Friday till April 26.
Police produced another accused Vishal Awasthi in court on Saturday and he was remanded to police custody till April 27. Patel further confessed that a person named Gaurang used to bring buyers of remdesivir to him. The case was transferred to the crime branch on Friday.
All offenders were penalized on the spot by police on Tuesday
Surat: After the strict implementation of night curfew, now city police have diverted their focus on early morning offenders in a bid to control the unrelenting Covid-19 surge. On Tuesday, police officers visited areas frequented by people who go for walks or to exercise. They caught all found without masks and penalised them on the spot.
On the other hand, the drive had dual purpose officers too were ordered by the city police commissioner Ajay Tomar to go out for morning walks themselves to stay fit and also keep check on those moving around without masks. “To create awareness for masks we started taking steps from the daybreak. Hence, I asked my officers to go out and check morning walkers. They do this work while out for exercising and a team of cops on duty assists them,” Tomar told TOI.
Local sugar factory provided 20 tonnes of bagasse to crematoriums
Surat: As crematoriums in Surat are running round-the-clock and forced to use kerosene and green wood for burning the bodies quickly, cooperative sugar factories in Surat have started providing bagasse for cremation.
Bagasse is the dry pulpy fibrous remains of sugarcane after it is crushed. It is generally used as bio-fuel. In a first, Sayan Sugar Factory provided 20 tonnes of bagasse to crematoriums at Pal and Olpad for free. The factory sells bagasse at Rs 900 a tonne for manufacturing paper products and as fuel for its boiler.
“Bagasse is our by-product and we use 50% of it for our boiler as fuel and the remaining 50% is purchased by paper product manufacturers. Since we got to know that kerosene and diesel are being used to burn the bodies of Covid victims, we decided to provide bagasse,” said Rakesh Patel, chairman of Sayan Sugar Factory.