Submit your Article

The call center operated by the Kathmandu Metropolitan City since some days back has become effective. The metropolis had brought the call centre into operation again since Tuesday to hear grievances and address them quickly.

The call centre has been run as per the decision of the first meeting of KMC Executive on May 30. The meeting was chaired by Mayor Balendra Shah. It is said the call centre is receiving 300 complaints daily.

According to Namaraj Dhakal, Chief of the KMC's IT Department, 90 percent of the complaints received at the call centre are related to garbage management. The rest of the complaints concern repairing road, filling up potholes on the road and service delivery. KMC had urged citizens to call at toll-free number 16600105511 if they had any complaints or grievance regarding the metropolis' services.

"The centre has the capacity of handling 15 calls simultaneously. This system has been operated to hear the complaints related to the service delivery of the metropolis and to its wards, departments, projects, units and distribution of facilities," he said.

The automated system forwards the complaints to the complaints handling officer or the related officials according to the nature of the complaints for addressing them at the earliest. The centre is operating only during office time from 10 am to 5 pm at present. Arrangements have been made to record the complaints coming to the call centre at other times, it is stated.

Nepal reported 17 new Covid-19 cases on Friday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 1, 915 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which seven returned positive. Likewise, 1, 155 people underwent antigen tests, of which 10 were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that seven infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 109 active cases in the country.

China's commercial hub of Shanghai will lock down millions of people for mass COVID-19 testing this weekend - just 10 days after lifting its gruelling two-month lockdown - unsettling residents and raising concerns about the business impact, Reuters reported.

Racing to stop a wider outbreak after discovering a handful of community cases, including a cluster traced to a popular beauty salon, authorities have ordered PCR testing for all residents in 14 of Shanghai's 16 districts over the weekend.

Five of the districts said residents would not be allowed to leave their homes while the testing was carried out. A notice issued by Changning district described the stay-home requirement as "closed management" of the community being sampled.

The latest scare triggered a rush to grocery stores and online platforms to stock up on food, as users of China's Twitter-like Weibo expressed fear they could be locked down for longer, having only started going back to work after the last lockdown was lifted on June 1, according to Reuters.

Some areas had remained sealed off or quickly returned to lockdown due to infections and their close contacts.

"The residential compound next to mine has already been locked down," said Zhang Jian, a 34 year old real estate agent.

"If there is a mass testing and there is another positive case in the compound, it will have a serious impact on our lives."

An upward trend in new Covid-19 cases continued in India on Friday, with the country recording 7,584 new cases and 24 deaths. With this, active cases rose to 36,267. The total number of recoveries logged in the last 24 hours was 3,791, The Indian Express reported.

The BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub-variants are making their presence felt across various areas in the country with the daily Covid tally now showing a rise in the country. When contacted, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO chief scientist, told The Indian Express that it could be the start of a mini wave. “The sub-variants that are emerging are more transmissible than the original Omicron BA.1 and there is a likelihood of waning immunity. It is a possibility that there could be mini waves every four-six months or so and hence, apart from all Covid-appropriate precautionary measures that need to be taken, it is important to also track the variant,” Dr Swaminathan said, according to The Indian Express.

The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths reported globally fell everywhere except the Middle East and Southeast Asia last week, according to a World Health Organisation weekly report released Wednesday. In its latest weekly update on the pandemic, the UN health agency said confirmed cases dropped 12% to more than 3 million and reported deaths declined 22 per cent to about 7,600.