A majority of book shops rolled up their shutters on Thursday, providing a big but temporary relief to students before Dhanbad subdivisional officer ordered their closure over violation of social-distancing norms.

The book stores had opened in the wake of lockdown relaxations offered by the Centre.

Bekarband resident Ashok Sharma said both his kids were facing a lot of difficulty in keeping track of the assignments in the absence of books.

“My daughter is a student of Class II in Carmel School and my son studies in Class IV at St Xavier’s International School. Both the schools are conducting online classes, but it is tough for them to follow the instructions on the school app without books. Today, I visited the book store at Police Lines called Student’s Friend and purchased books for both my children,” Sharma said.

Debashish Haldar, a Hirapur resident and an employee of Bharat Coking Coal Limited, said his son had been nagging him for books for a fort night. “My son, a student of Class V in Dhanbad Public School, had been pestering me for books because he thought he was a lagging behind his classmates.”

Rajesh Gupta, president of Pustak Vyavsai Sangh, said almost all the retail book stores had opened on Thursday.

However, later in the evening, SDO Raj Maheshwaram ordered the closure of all book shops.

“We have temporarily suspended the reopening of book shops due to the non-observance of social-distancing norms. We will hold a meeting with all book sellers tomorrow (on Friday) and decide on the modalities.”

Project restarts

With the Centre allowing continuation of ongoing projects outside municipal limits, work began on 20km eight-lane road project from Gol Builiding in Dhanbad to Kako Math in Katras, being constructed at a cost of Rs 416 crore provided by the World Bank.

The construction, with two lanes as service roads and cycle track on both sides, is being carried out since May 2019 by State Highway Authority of Jharkhand in phases. The first phase of 11.7km from Kako Math in Katras to Binod Bihari Mahto Chowk in Dhanbad is being built by Tribeni Construction Ltd of Guwahati in Assam. In the second phase, 8.3km from Binod Bihari Chowk to Gol Building in Dhanbad is being constructed by Shivalaya Construction Pvt Ltd.

“We have slowly started work in both the separate phases with limited labourers available in the camps,' said M.K. verma, project in-charge of the state highway authority.

The road is being constructed on the pattern of Smart City and is expected to ease the problem of perennial traffic congestion in Dhanbad.