Bhubaneswar:17/7/20: Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy in a meeting with the Collectors, SPs, Municipal Commissioners, Police Commissioner of four districts and towns where lockdown has been imposed from 17 July directed to implement the lockdown norms very strictly without any compromise with public health.
Tripathy said, “The current lockdown is entirely driven by the principles of public health based on medical and clinical science; and hence there should not be any relaxation in implementation at ground level”.
The Commissionerate Police of Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Twin City was directed to have strict regulation regarding entry and exit of the persons and vehicles except the goods carrying vehicles. They were also asked to judge genuinity and urgency of the cases in allowing the entry and exist.
The entire administrative machinery of these lockdown areas were directed to intensify surveillance, testing, tracing, isolation and treatment during this period. Chief Secretary directed Collectors to draft any official from any department for assisting in this process.
Tripathy made it clear, “State is fighting the pandemic as one unit. All the departments are to assist and cooperate the health & family welfare department in this task”. Chief Secretary emphatically told that “checking the infection is our single target”. Find out all symptomatic cases. Each district and ULB must have their own ‘local specific’ strategy for this survey. Intensive awareness activities also should be undertaken for motivating the people to come forward for test if they find any symptom in themselves.
Additional Chief Secretary( ACS) Health & Family Welfare ( H&FW) Pradeepta Kumar Mohapatra said, “ there is no want of testing kits, protective equipment, and medicines. All the CDMOs have been supplied with these materials”. He also asked the CDMOs to be in direct touch with Medical Corporation for further requirements, if any.
Collectors were asked to look into the ground situation daily over one to one meeting with the CDMOs and assess the effectiveness of the survey, check infection rate, management and treatment of the positive cases as per the guidelines; and, report those to ACS H & FW, who will monitor ‘health parameters’ of all the districts daily.
The print and electronic media were advised to apply self-regulation by deploying minimum bare required personnel on the ground.
Principal Secretary GA & Public Grievances Sanjeeb Chopra said that all government officers should work from home. The staff required by the respective office head will come to the office.
It was further clarified that the organizations in insurance, banking and IT sectors should operate with bare minimum staff. The personnel coming to the office must have their own identity card along with duty allotment letters from the respective office head.
The ULBs and Police were advised to decentralize the wet markets for maintaining social distance.
Chief Secretary advised the people not to travel more than half a kilometer to purchase vegetables or essential commodities. All were asked to walk down the distance to shops and not to use bikes or vehicles for the purpose. Tripathy said, “Sufficient supply of essential commodities and vegetables will be maintained and nobody should make any panic buying”.
Director General of Police Abhaya, ACS and SRC Pradeep Kumar Jena, ACS Health & Family Welfare Pradeepta Kumar Jena, Commissioner of Police Sudhansu Sadangi, Principal Secretary Home Sanjiv Chopra along with senior officers from respective departments and police participated in the deliberations. The Collectors, SPs and CDMOs of concerned districts participated in it over video conferencing.