Volunteers distributing food to needy: Haryana raises red-flag, orders prior authorisation by DC

To ensure that none of these volunteers is already infected with coronavirus, Haryana’s Chief Secretary Keshni Anand Arora Tuesday directed officers to “ensure that every such volunteer distributing food should be first made to go through thermal scanning. Volunteer who is donating food should be authorised by the Deputy Commissioner and should carry out the work of distributing food in collaboration with the police and incident commandment. Proper procedure has to be streamlined and it should be ensured that not anybody and everybody is going out to distribute food”.

Arora gave these directions while chairing the daily Crisis Coordination Committee meeting, through video conferencing.

About the testing laboratories, Arora said, “State government has designated five private laboratories in Gurgaon district for COVID-19 testing in the State. Therefore, maximum publicity of these laboratories should be ensured”.

Arora also directed the officers that “thermal testing of each migrant staying in relief camps should be ensured”, adding that “a monitoring committee for every relief camp in each district including private persons shall be constituted to keep a check on if the proper system and protocol is being followed for the money being spent by the state government. The committee should also keep an inventory of private donations”.

She further directed: “A special officer should be deployed for the monitoring of relief camps, especially at night. As night vigil is the need of the hour to control and stop movement of migrants coming through inter and intra-state borders, therefore along with police patrolling, the patrolling done by the Irrigation Department teams should also be intensified.”

The government has also ordered to appoint a nodal officer for every district for the monitoring of migrants and relief camps. These nodal officers shall ensure regular sanitation and cleanliness of these camps. Apart from these, another nodal officer shall be appointed for HAFED to ensure the supply chain of essential commodities and action taken report of each district shall be shared among the officers concerned.

The Chief Secretary also asked officers to formulate a plan to start telemedicine in their respective districts, adding that a list of the doctors, who have registered themselves as volunteers, be prepared and all of them should be utilised as, when and wherever required.

Public places being sanitised across Haryana: Anil Vij

Currently 22,440 sweepers are working and 3,466 vehicles have been deployed for carrying out the cleaning works across Haryana.

“The main roads of more than 25 cities are being cleaned with the help of mechanical sweeping machines. For the safety of all employees engaged in the cleaning, the government has provided them with masks, gloves, soap etc,” Haryana’s Urban Local Bodies Minister Anil Vij said, while elaborating the state’s sanitisation programme.

“Disinfectant spray is being done regularly at all the bus stands, railway stations, government offices and public places of the state. Services of the employees of the local bodies who were retiring on March 31 have been extended for one month i.e till April 30, 2020,” Vij added.

To deal with the current situation, Urbal Local Bodies Department has also set up 164 lodging centers in collaboration with the district administration to provide food and accommodation to the workers of unorganised sectors, migrant labourers and the destitute people.

State government has also appointed Municipal Commissioners of 10 Municipal Corporations and 18 coordinating officers in the municipalities to monitor the efforts being made to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus at the headquarter-level.

“The government has also released a grant of Rs 288.92 crore to all 87 municipalities for the prevention of coronavirus,” Vij said.