Bhubaneswar: Amid COVID-19 lockdown, the Odisha government has begun an exercise to contact people from Odisha staying in the neighbouring states.
Briefing mediapersons after presiding over a high-level meeting at the Lok Seva Bhawan here on Tuesday, principal secretary, Home, Sanjeev Chopra said the state government had reached out to 40,000 of 1.5 lakh non-resident Odias.
Stating that the state control room has so far received 5,200 distress calls, Chopra said nodal officers appointed for all states to assists Odias, facing problems during the lockdown period, are constantly updating the government on them.
“As of now, 230 groups with more than 100 Odias have been identified of which a majority of them are residing in Delhi NCR, Gujarat and Mumbai,” he said, adding that the state government will continue its efforts to keep in touch with them till the situation improves.