COVID-19: LG for doubling the virus control efforts, Suspension of religious congregations

Jammu: Lieutenant Governor, Girish Chandra Murmu Saturday asked the officers engaged in Corona prevention efforts to double the efforts for containing the spread of the deadly virus. He was chairing a high level meeting here at Raj Bhavan.
Kewal Kumar Sharma, Farooq Khan, Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar and Baseer Ahmed Khan – Advisors to the Lt Governor; BVR Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary; Arun Kumar Mehta, Financial Commissioner, Finance Department; Atal Dulloo, Financial Commissioner Health and Medical Education; Bipul Pathak, Principal Secretary to Lieutenant Governor; Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary, Planning, Development and Monitoring Department; Sanjeev Verma, Divisional Commissioner, Jammu ; Simrandeep Singh , Administrative Secretary to the Government , Department of Disaster Management , Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction & FCS & CA; Sushma Chauhan, Deputy Commissioner, Jammu and Bhupinder Kumar, Mission Director, NHM J&K attended the meeting.
The Lt Governor observed that being at the threshold of third stage of COVID-19, escalating the preparatory efforts for preventing the spread of the virus is required. He passed the directions for doubling up of the isolation and quarantine facilities as well as beds in the hospitals and asked the officers for tracing the contacts of suspected cases of COVID-19 so that random sampling and testing could be done as a precautionary measure.
“Ensure home delivery of essential commodities in vulnerable areas; identify labour pockets and slum areas and form teams to provide ration and essential commodities to these areas”, the Lt Governor maintained. He further directed for allocating mobile ambulances for random health checkups of the students living in Hostels across the UT and also to ensure the ration supply etc to them.
The Lt Governor also appealed to the religious leaders to stop all types of religious congregations to avoid public gatherings. He called for regular fumigation and announcements, especially in Kashmir and other areas where large number of people with foreign travel history are coming up.
Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board was asked to distribute ration kits to Pony-walas, Palki-walas, Pithoos and other stranded workers who have lost their wages due to closing of the pilgrimage.
The meeting was informed that the Administration is effectively working out the strategy so that the Financial Package announced by the Central Government reached to the beneficiaries.
The chair was informed that the wages for daily rated workers of various departments have been released by the Finance department. There is a free flow and smooth transportation of essential commodities including fodder for cattle. It was further informed that in each designated COVID hospital, a COVID clinic has been set up for preliminary checkups and diagnosis; besides, sufficient testing kits and isolation beds are available in the designated Hospitals.