Write a letter of complaint to the DM of your district complaining about the people who are wandering in city without any safety gear during the pandemic
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At present, there are 16 confirmed positive cases, and eight hotspots where doorstep delivery of food, medicines and other essential commodities is being done through district supply office, says Aditi Singh, District Magistrate of Hapur, Uttar Pradesh
Aditi Singh, District Magistrate, Hapur
Aditi Singh is District Magistrate of Hapur district in Uttar Pradesh, which has so far escaped the worst ravages of COVID-19. In an email interview with The Hindu, Ms. Singh provides a picture of what governance amounts to on the ground in the days of the pandemic. Excerpts
Hapur has reported few COVID-19 cases so far. Why is the figure so low in Hapur when it is close to hotspots like Meerut and Noida?
At present, Hapur has 16 confirmed positive cases with eight hotspots. From the second week of March, we were receiving information from the State health department and local sources regarding people with foreign travel history. In the last five weeks, 150 persons were actively tracked, examined by medical teams and home quarantined for 14 days. To prevent violation, notices were pasted outside their homes with names and dates of persons quarantined to generate social awareness and pressure and discouraging them from leaving their homes during quarantine period. In case of repeat violators, stricter legal measures were adopted such as registering FIRs, one in Garh and three in Hapur tehsils respectively.
Forty mobile medical teams have been proactively surveying urban and rural areas for inter-State and inter-district travellers leading to the tracking and home quarantine of 6,673 persons in the last four-five weeks.
Further, active surveillance of persons under home quarantine is being done over phone through temporary call centres set up at the district level. Also, urban local bodies and panchayat raj sanitation workers have been instructed to dispose of household waste from all quarantined homes as bio-medical waste after segregation. Intensive sanitisation with hypochlorite solution is being done across district by local bodies.
What are the profiles of these cases? Have you done contact tracing?
All nine positive cases are of male patients ranging from ages 15-71 who belong to cluster from a religious gathering in New Delhi. So far, 72 persons have been traced in the district from this congregation. A total of 343 of their contacts were traced by us through local sources and surveillance techniques. Of these, 140 high-risk contacts have been kept in hospital quarantine wards and 203 low risk contacts are in tehsil quarantine centres.
How is the administration providing door-to-door services in the hotspots? Are you facing any challenges in that given that U.P. has dense populations and stretched administration?
At present, we have eight hotspots where doorstep delivery of food, medicines and other essential commodities is being done through district supply office, food safety and drug administration office, and mandi parishad. A total of 40 PDS ration dealers, 173 people for delivering milk, and 367 mobile vans, e-rickshaws, tractors, and hand drawn carts are being utilised to deliver fruits, vegetables, medicines and other essential items. Magistrates and police force have to be deployed to regulate public activities and ensure social distancing which is a challenge. Some streets in city area being very narrow also pose a challenge in delivering foodgrains.
On Monday, there was a video circulated of a weeping old woman not getting food in the Hapur collectorate. Following some TV reports, the administration provided food to her. Was there some kind of a lapse in the system? How are you ensuring that the poor, homeless and unemployed get fed?
On Monday, a group of women including Dharmawati (woman shown in video), Usha, Riya and their family members who reside in a locality called Ganeshpura in Hapur city had gone to SDM Hapur’s office in Hapur Nagar Palika premises. According to SDM Hapur, they came around 10 a.m. and spoke to a home guard named Ramreek, posted in Commandant Home Guards’ office asking for food. He informed them that cooked food arrives there between 11 a.m. and12 noon and will be provided by tehsil authorities then. Meanwhile, there were some mediapersons observing this exchange who took the group of women aside and recorded their interview. Both SDM and Tehsildar Hapur were in field during this time ensuring containment activity in hotspots. When the matter came to knowledge of Tehsil authorities around 12 noon, Tehsildar Hapur promptly reached the spot and provided cooked food packets which had by then been prepared. Additionally, both SDM and Tahsildar Hapur were sent by me to Dharmawati’s house in the afternoon to provide dry ration packets to her and her neighbour, which will be replenished as per requirement.
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