Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, while presiding over a high level meeting here today to review the situation arisen due to Covid-19, said that control room would be established at State headquarter so as to coordinate with the people stranded in other States. He said that Secretary, GAD would be in charge of this control room and it would work round the clock. He said that people of Himachal Pradesh stranded in other States could contact through control room. He said that Government was making all out efforts to reach out to the people of Himachal Pradesh stranded in other States and would also take up the matter regarding these Himachalis with the concerned State Government. Chief Minister said that control rooms already established at Himachal Bhawans, Delhi and Chandigarh would be further strengthened to facilitate the people of Himachal Pradesh stranded there. He said the control room at Delhi would ensure proper liaison with administrative machinery of whole National Capital Region whereas the control room at Chandigarh would ensure effective liaisoning with administration of Tri-City.It was decided in the meeting that all the government offices, educational institutions, aanganwaris, creches would continue to remain closed besides inter and intra state movement of public and private stage and contract carriages including taxis would be prohibited till 14th April, 2020. It was also decided that private vehicles would be allowed to ply only if essentially required for visiting hospitals and for availing maintenance of essential services.Jai Ram Thakur said that there was adequate stock of medicines in the State besides adequate availability of PPE kits and surgical masks in health institutions of the State. He said that the ICMR has given its approval for providing Covid-19 test facility in CRI Kasauli. He said that this would increase capacity of tests in the State.
Chief Minister said that as many as 17 people of the State were on religious congregation at Delhi Nijamuddeen. He said that all of them were under 14 days surveillance of Delhi Government at New Delhi and till now they have no symptoms of Covid-19.Jai Ram Thakur said that an Active Case Finding Campaign was being launched in the State from tomorrow under which health workers would provide information regarding symptoms of Covid-19 to the people at their door steps. He said that under this campaign every ASHA worker with two persons team will visit house to house of the village and take health information of every person and share it with the department through Google form. He said that this campaign will be from 9 am to 4 pm every day. He said that after campaign, the suspected persons would be investigated accordingly. Chief Minister said that as many as 3396 persons had been kept under surveillance for corona virus in the State so far out of which 1168 people had completed 28 days of surveillance period. He said that investigations of 17 persons for COVID-19 had been done today and all samples had been found negative. He said that 229 persons had so far been investigated in the State for corona virus and 226 have been found negative. Speaker, H.P. Vidhan Sabha Vipin Singh Parmar, Education Minister Suresh Bhardwaj, Chief Secretary Anil Kumar Khachi, Additional Chief Secretary Health R.D. Dhiman, Director General of Police S.R. Mardi, Principal Secretary Finance Prabodh Saxena, Principal Secretary Transport J.C. Sharma, Principal Secretary Revenue Onkar Sharma, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Sanjay Kundu, Secretary Rajneesh and Director Information and Public Relations Harbans Brascon also attended the meeting.