The East Singhbhum health authorities carried out a special Covid-19 testing drive in various urban and rural areas on Wednesday.

Camps were set up in various rural blocks and urban areas for the purpose.

Officials of civic bodies like Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) and Mango Notified Area Committee (MNAC) with incident commanders assisted the health authorities during the special drive.

All visitors at Sakchi market had to undergo the RT-PCR test at the Bazar Master's office.

Similarly, visitors to other markets like Mango and Golmuri also had to undergo RT-PCR test.

JNAC special officer Krishna Kumar said the special test drive was carried out to gauge the extent of cases, which are on the rise for the last couple of weeks.

A team led by JNAC special officer also inspected the Sidhgora-based Professional College which will be temporarily converted into a quarantine centre.

"We inspected the newly built college campus to take stock of things. The college campus will be converted into a quarantine centre by the end of this week, " said Kumar, the JNAC special officer.

The health department officials also carried out Covid-19 tests for those coming to Jharkhand from Bengal and Odisha by road.

District health department apprehends a post-Holi surge in the Covid cases here.

According to health department officials they had set a target of conducting 2,000 tests in urban areas and 400 tests in each of the nine blocks of East Singhbhum during the day-long special drive.

Data available from the office of East Singhbhum civil surgeon suggests that till Tuesday, 269 active Covid cases were detected in the district and the total number of the cases since last year has gone up to 18,751.