patna even before the lockdown was announced on march 22 patnaites in residential societies apartments and colonies went out of their way to chalk out plans to deal with the new normal from distributing masks to gsetiving sanitizers and getting circles painted on the floor for maintaining social distancing societies took every possible step to curb the spread of the virus as part of tois mysocietypride initiative dozens of residential societies have written to us sharing what they did and continue to doa majority of residential societies claimed that they did regular sanitization of the premises as well as the flats several others said they banned the entry of outsiders to protect residents saharsh bhushan treasurer of arrah garden residences in rukanpura said only senior officials who couldnt work from home were going out the vehicles used by them are sanitized with sodium hypochlorite solution the other residents who were working from home stay indoors as we have made availability of all essential commodities besides a common delivery point has been designated inside the campus for picking up milk and grocery he saidhe added that blockwise activities including antakshari were organized for residents on a regular basis during the lockdownbhushan also said funds were collected from residents for helping migrants who arrived at shahpur village area we provided food packets veg biryani fruits and water bottles to them he addedat jalalpur city near rps more a personal sanitization equipment has been installed to follow regular sanitization of the entire society society members have also installed automatic sanitizers near elevators for those coming inrajiv kumar a flat owner said out of the five elevators only one has been made functional for residents keeping in mind the safety of people we have also restricted the use of elevators for coming downstairs they are allowed to use it only after going through sanitization at the entrance of the society apart from this the shops and street vendors who sell vegetables and other things are also screened on a regular basis all the measures are still being followed as the number of cases is increasing at a rapid rate kumar saidasked about steps being taken to engage residents kumar said virtual classes of art and craft are being organized for the residents we also organize yoga and zumba classes he saidyoga classes were also organized at sai enclave in danapur in order to keep residents connected during the lockdown vinay kumar singh a flat owner at gyan sarovar apartment near rps more said sanitization of the residential society is still being done on alternate days