Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha chairs series of meetings with Covid Task Force, DCs, SPs

SRINAGAR: Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha today chaired a series of meetings with members of the Covid Task Force, Deputy Commissioners, and SPs to review Covid-19 situation in J&K and directed the senior officials to act swiftly on utilizing the maximum capacity for testing and vaccination.

“The decline in Covid-19 cases are encouraging, however, the administration should remain extra careful and advise people to strictly follow the Covid-19 guidelines. We are still witnessing a rise in active cases in certain areas where people are not following the Covid appropriate behaviour. District Administrations and Police Joint teams on the ground must urge people to follow the Covid rules besides imposing fine”, the Lt Governor observed.

The Lt Governor directed the DCs, SPs, and Social welfare department to extend assistance to Vulnerable Sections, Families, Health Workers, besides ensuring that the beneficiaries under SASCM should be provided with Government benefits on priority.

Save both Lives and Livelihoods through a robust mechanism on the ground. Ensure 100% Vaccination of Priority groups including health workers, frontline workers by Month-end. Universal coverage of the first dose of 45 and above age group needs to be done by the already set timeline i.e 30th June, the Lt Governor told the DCs and Health Department.

Stressing on enforcing containment measures at micro-level, the Lt Governor directed for declaring areas with high positivity rate as Micro Containment Zone to stop the spread of Covid infection.

Directions were passed to all the District Administrations to bring down the positivity rate, besides generating daily Covid report at Block-level.

Laying special emphasis on Government-Public joint efforts in the fight against Covid pandemic, the Lt Governor urged the people to support District Administration in vaccination drive, contact tracing, and protecting at-risk populations.

In order to reach out to the maximum population with greater awareness on Covid pandemic and its challenges, the Lt Governor emphasized on extensive and vibrant IEC campaign in collaboration with School Education Department, Youth Services and Sports and J&K Bank.

With a view to acknowledge the exceptional work done by Good Samaritans and Government employees in this Covid crisis, the Lt Governor asked the Health and Medical Education Department to formulate a scheme to reward the outstanding performances in Covid management in every district.

During the meetings, the Lt Governor reviewed public health response to Covid-19 with regard to testing, positivity rate, vaccination, Covid appropriate behaviour etc.

While taking stock of the functioning of Oxygen plants, the Lt Governor directed for operationalization of the remaining two oxygen plants at the earliest which were received recently.

Meanwhile, Sh. Atal Dulloo, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Medical Education Department gave a detailed presentation detailing out district wise status of various Covid monitoring parameters.

Sh. Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to the Lt Governor; Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta, Chief Secretary; Sh. Dilbag Singh, DGP; Sh. Shaleen Kabra, Principal Secretary, Home Department; Sh. Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary, Information Department; Sh. Shailendra Kumar, Principal Secretary Public Works (R&B) Department; Sh. Nitishwar Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Lt Governor; Sh. Mukesh Singh, ADGP; Sh. Pandurang K Pole, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir; Sh. Vijay Kumar, IGP Kashmir; Dr. Raghav Langer, Divisional Commissioner Jammu; Deputy Commissioners and SPs, attended the meetings through virtual mode.