The Lieutenant Governor Girish Chandra Murmu today convened a high level meeting with the senior functionaries of various departments to take stock of the preparedness in containing COVID-19.This was the second high level meeting in two days to review the status of preparedness for preventing the spread of corona virus.Shri Kewal Kumar Sharma, Shri Farooq Khan, Shri Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Shri Baseer Ahmad Khan, Advisors to the Lieutenant Governor; Shri BVR Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary and Administrative Secretaries of various departments attended the meeting. Director General of Police, Divisional Commissioners of both the Divisions and Deputy Commissioners of all the districts attended the meeting through video conference.During the meeting, the Lt. Governor inquired about the arrangements made so far to tackle the threat of corona virus (COVID-19) infection and gave instructions in this regard for effective preventive and pre-emptive measures to senior officials across the UT.The Lt. Governor asked the concerned to ensure adequate quarantine; isolation facilities and equipment to deal with suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 as per the mandated protocol and SOPs.For this, he directed for creation of adequate quarantine facility in every district of Jammu and Kashmir, especially the two capital cities having large population.The Lt. Governor stated that raising awareness regarding the precautions in small towns and villages must be done on war footing by involving religious leaders and Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs).The Lieutenant Governor asked the Jammu Municipal Corporation to intensify the sanitation and disinfection drive in the city so that any kind of risk in the wake of COVID-19 is mitigated.He appealed to general public to make ‘Janta Curfew’ a success by observing it in letter and spirit on March 22, between 7 am and 9 pm during which, people should stay at home.
He also urged people to encourage health care professionals, security personnel and other essential services staff fighting COVID-19, by mass clapping, ringing bells etc at 5 pm on March 22 as a mark of respect and motivation.To avoid rush and promote social distancing, the Lt. Governor asked the concerned officers to motivate the grocers to establish a mechanism for home delivery of grocery and other necessary commodities to minimize the risk.The Lt Governor directed for adequate storage of essential commodities and asked FCS&CA department to ensure adequate and timely distribution of food grains and other essential commodities to the lowest level.The Deputy Commissioners were also directed to ensure smooth movement of struck vehicles on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, prioritising the vehicles carrying essential commodities and medicine facilities.The PHE and PDD departments were directed for adequate drinking water facility and uninterrupted power supply to the hospitals and Quarantine centers.It was informed that adequate supplies of all essentials are being maintained and public awareness through print and electronic media is a regular feature.The Health and Medical Education department was directed to maintain regular supply of medicines in all the districts, besides ensuring maximum availability of sanitizers, masks and other medical kits in the medical shops.He directed the administrative secretaries to suitably extend the dates of all renewable services including licenses, permits, fee etc which were due in March 2020.Finance department was directed to release the pensions being disbursed by Social Welfare department like widow pension, old age pension and disability pension etc.The Lt Governor exhorted upon the concerned officers to provide all requisite facilities to frontline officials including doctors, paramedical staff and security personnel for their immensely important service in the difficult time of corona virus outbreak.The Lt. Governor was informed that COVID-19 tests are being conducted at three places of Union Territory of J&K i.e. SKIMS, Soura, GMC Srinagar and GMC Jammu. Further, an Army Laboratory has been approved for conducting COVID-19 tests, whereas Indian Institute of Integrated Medicine (IIIM) is also likely to be cleared for tests.