War rooms to be activated; Nodal officers to ensure smooth coordination in providing Covid kits and other assistance to people in need
JAMMU, JANUARY 9: The Jammu and Kashmir government will start administering booster dose of COVID vaccine to the healthcare and frontline workers, besides people above 60 years and with co-morbidities from tomorrow.
“All necessary arrangements should be made for walk-in and registered eligible population”, the Lt Governor Manoj Sinha asked the officials while reviewing the COVID-19 situation across J&K during a high-level meeting with members of Covid Task Force, DCs and SSPs. He also urged the police personnel, health workers, government employees to take all precautionary measures while serving the people.
The Lt Governor directed the district administrations to gear up preparedness and provide all assistance to healthcare teams, besides activating War Rooms immediately, ensuring effective functionality of Covid help-lines and keeping joint enforcement teams on the job. He instructed the Nodal officers to ensure smooth coordination in providing Covid kits and other assistance to people in need.
“We should be fully prepared to tackle the surge in cases. Existing decentralized system at the Panchayat level should be made functional for immediate medical attention,’’ observed the Lt Governor.
Explicit directions were passed to the divisional and district administrations for optimum utilization of testing capacity, besides declaring micro-containment zones and hot spots in areas registering increase in cases, and to avoid crowding at public places. “Any laxity in enforcement of CAB will not be tolerated”, he said.
The Lt Governor further called for conducting IEC campaign at divisional and district level to highlight threats from highly transmissible variant and encourage people to follow Covid Appropriate Behaviour.
Vivek Bhardwaj, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Medical Education Department gave a detailed briefing on the district-wise analysis of Covid-19 situation and the threat level, status of testing, contact tracing and vaccination across the UT. He informed the LG that the vaccination drive for the 15-18 year age group is going on smoothly across the UT.
With 99 per cent coverage of second dose for population above 18 years, J&K is in a better position as compared to other states/UTs in terms of vaccination, it was informed.
The LG also took stock of the implementation of directions passed in previous meetings.
Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to the Lt Governor; Dr Arun Kumar Mehta, Chief Secretary; Shaleen Kabra, Principal Secretary to the Government, Home department; Shailendra Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Government, Public Works (R&B) Department; Pandurang K Pole, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir; Mukesh Singh, ADGP Jammu; Dr Raghav Langer, Divisional Commissioner Jammu; Vijay Kumar, IGP Kashmir; Dr. Saleem-ur-Rehman, Director General, Family Welfare, MCH & Immunization; Choudhary Mohammad Yasin; Mission Director NHM; Deputy Commissioners and SSPs, attended the meetings, in person and through virtual mode.
