NEW DELHI: The two central teams that visited Surat and Ahmedabad in Gujarat to assess the COVID-19 situation there found that the state government is taking all measures to curb the spread of the pandemic and to ensure enforcement of the lockdown.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which constituted the Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs), cited inputs of the teams and said the administration is “conducting extensive testing and using technologies to identify coronavirus cases in the initial stages itself”, said Punya Salila Srivastava, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs.
Srivastava also lauded the state and police for ensuring social distancing norms during relief work. Srivastava added that IMCT that visited Ahmedabad found the ‘Gram Yoddha Samiti (village warrior committee)’ to be efficient and suggested the model can be adopted by other states.
The praise of the Gujrat government by IMCTs and MHA comes on a day when migrant workers pelted stones at Diamond Bourse office in Surat, demanding that they should be sent back to their native places and alleging they are being forced to work amid the shutdown.
Notably, Gujarat has recorded the second-highest number of positive cases and deaths in the country. As on Tuesday, the second worst-hit state by coronavirus recorded 3548 cases and 162 deaths.
Badruddin Shaikh, a veteran Congress leader and a corporator from Danilimada area in Ahmedabad was also one of the victims of coronavirus.
During the daily press briefing on the situation, Srivastava also said, “The IMCT (/topic/imct) has held discussions with various stakeholders including textile and diamond industries, who are major employers of labourers. Most labourers have received the salary of last month. The Central team has asked the Surat administration to prepare future plans as well.”