The Mamata Banerjee government has decided to postpone its flagship programme Duare Sarkar across Bengal and put on hold an event to distribute student credit cards in Calcutta after the latest spike in Covid cases, suggesting more curbs are in store for the state.

The Duare Sarkar camps were scheduled from January 2 across Bengal. This would have been the third edition of the camps for people to register their names for state welfare schemes. The event to distribute Student Credit Card was scheduled for Monday at Calcutta’s Netaji Indoor Stadium where the chief minister would have handed over the cards to some students.

“Chief minister Mamata Banerjee held a telephonic conversation with chief secretary H.K. Dwivedi on Saturday and it was decided that both the programmes would be put on hold in the wake of rising Covid cases to prevent crowding,” said a senior bureaucrat, adding that these events would be held once “the situation improved”.

“The chief minister will hold a review meeting on Bengal’s Covid situation at Nabanna possibly on January 3. Any decision on restrictions will be taken during the meeting,” said another official.

A senior bureaucrat said there were practical problems to stricter restrictions before the Gangasagar Mela scheduled to end on January 14.

“Till now, the state government is still considering a full-fledged fair, and hence stricter restrictions that include suspension of local trains and any mode of public transport may not be possible before mid-January. The government can impose a partial curbs for now,” said the bureaucrat.

Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court Prakash Srivastava issued a notification on Saturday banning physical hearing of cases in the high court and subordinates courts of Bengal from January 3. However, physical hearing will be allowed in some criminal cases where government lawyers have to produce case dairies before court. However, some lawyers have questioned the exception granted to government lawyers.

In the backdrop of rising cases and the spread of the omicron variant, the Union health ministry has written to states to initiate steps to arrest the rapid spread of the virus.

The advisory said India reported 16,764 positive cases on December 31, the highest in 70 days. States have been advised to set up temporary healthcare establishments with the help of the DRDO and private organisations, and control rooms at districts and at the ward level. Covid patients in home isolation must be monitored and shifted to hospitals immediately if needed.

Special care has to be taken for children testing positive. At the same time, the states have to ensure that infrastructure developed over the past year for treatment of Covid patients have to be kept ready.

“In Bengal, we have already started restoring the infrastructure set up during the second wave. This includes requisitioning private hospitals once again,” said a source.