Though parks and gardens have been closed and attendance of teachers at schools has been reduced to 50% as covid control measures, but the travel of migrant labourers from other states to Jammu & Kashmir continues non stop even after the reports about 110 migrant labourers of a non local private company testing positive for covid-19 at Qazigund went viral on social media. Now when the covid has spread beyond imaginations and fear of death has reached even the remotest of the remote villages where people don’t have access to even basic health facilities not to talk of dedicated covid health centres, the government is caught in a row over 50% passenger cut for passenger vehicles with the public transport operators. Shockingly the governments both central and state are condemned for failing to implement the appropriate covid behaviour amid huge surge in the second wave of the covid-19 pandemic in almost all parts of the country. While the Utter Pradesh Government is being blamed for the crowd mismanagement at Kumb Mela and the central government has come in for sharp criticism for it’s failures in the facility of covid vaccine stocks and oxygen cylinders at government hospitals , the election commission of India is caught in a legal row for increasing poll period in West Bengal. Similarlyy Jammu & Kashmir has come under sharp criticism for allowing huge crowds at parks and gardens even after indications of a major surge in the second wave of covid-19 pandemic. Though Jammu & Kashmir Government closed schools immediately after the beginning of the second wave of covid-19 pandemic but it risked the lives of teachers at schools, universities and colleges by asking them to pursue on campus online classes for the students.
Every decision government takes to contain the unprecedented surge in the second wave of covid-19 pandemic finally becomes either the cause for the spread of the pandemic or ends up in unwanted physical and psychological inconveniences to the panicked populations in Kashmir valley.
Though lately the attendance of teachers has been reduced to 50% but the deployment of teachers for covid vaccine survey is yet another move that is tantamount risk the lives of teachers. While employees of municipal bodies in cities and towns and those of development blocks of the rural development in villages are suited better for the job of covid vaccination survey, the job has been assigned to teachers who are supposed to conduct online classes. No one in the government has bothered to understand that teachers are for teaching but not for non teaching jobs related to covid safety measures. Asking teachers to simultaneously perform the twin duties of covid vaccination survey and online classes shows the administrative wisdom of the incumbent Jammu & Kashmir Government. This time when the surge in covid-19 cases and death of covid patients is rising day after day, the government on one hand does not pay any heed to the growing demand for ban on travel of migrant labourers from other covid hit parts of the country but on the other hand it did not exempt the movement of the goods trucks carrying essentials to Kashmir on Jammu-Srinagar highway under the garb of “one day corona curfew” last Sunday. So the every decision government takes to contain the unprecedented surge in the second wave of covid-19 pandemic finally becomes either the cause for the spread of the pandemic or ends up in unwanted physical and psychological inconveniences to the panicked populations in Kashmir valley.
