Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang, better known as P S Golay, on Friday said that the Himalayan state has incurred damages worth thousands of crores of rupees in the flash flood.
'They are doing a good surveillance job.' 'It is not easy to undertake this task on such a huge scale given the risks.' 'But home quarantine is not effective.' 'Only institutional quarantine can bring good results.'
States have been told to prepare in advance to counter any impact of an adverse southwest monsoon.
Parts of Bengaluru that were battered by torrential rains for the last couple of days appeared to be slowly returning to normalcy with floodwaters by and large receding in some areas.
In a letter to Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, the central team in north Bengal, led by senior bureaucrat Vineet Joshi, said more field officers are required to monitor and provide feedback about the effectiveness of various measures undertaken by the government.
In a stern two-page letter to West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said stricter enforcement of lockdown norms was necessary to contain the spread of coronavirus in the state.
'The situation is especially serious in major hotspot districts or emerging hotspots like Ahmedabad and Surat (Gujarat), Thane (Maharashtra), Hyderabad (Telangana), and Chennai (Tamil Nadu),' the MHA statement said.
Asked during a press briefing if special trains and private vehicles will also be allowed to transport these people as demanded by some states and others, Joint Secretary in the Union home ministry Punya Salila Srivastava said the orders issued at present were for 'using buses and for group of persons'.
'This extremely high mortality rate is a clear indication of low testing, weak surveillance and tracking,' Inter Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) leader Apoorva Chandra said in the letter.
In keeping with the committee's directives, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has been asked to arrange for more beds and increase testing across Mumbai, Tope said, adding that tents can also be put up in open grounds if needed. The IMCT on Wednesday visited quarantine facilities and transit camps at Dharavi to assess the corrective measures taken by the state government.
The assurance came hours after the Centre accused the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government of obstructing a central team deputed to assess the coronavirus ground situation.
These include over 60 troops, who were deployed for law and order duties in the Jamia and Chandni Mahal area of the national capital, and six from the escort team of the inter-ministerial central team (IMCT) that toured West Bengal to check COVID-19 containment measures in the state.
The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 543 and the number of cases climbed to 17,265 in the country on Monday, according to the Union health ministry.
'Does it mean that till the COVID-19 fight is over, the governor should be non-functional, in sleep mode, and fiddling in the Raj Bhavan while the state is burning?'
The central government has constituted six Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs) to make an on-spot assessment of the COVID-19 situation in these places and issue necessary directions to the four states -- Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and West Bengal -- for redress.
The ministry had sent the six previous teams to Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal to review the implementation of the lockdown measures after the assessment of ground situation in identified select districts.
'There has been no significant increase in the number of fatalities.'
The home ministry said the West Bengal government is not cooperating with the central teams visiting the state to assess the ground situation and are specifically restraining them from interacting with health workers and touring the affected areas.
Empowerment of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) with extra territorial jurisdiction and declaration of Maulana Masood Azhar, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Dawood Ibrahim as terrorists after legislative amendment were counted among its achievements by the MHA, headed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
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