Noida: Away for a day? Keep a ‘Covid-free’ certificate ready as RWA safety manuals get stricter

TNN | Apr 18, 2020, 08:13 IST

Picture used for representational purpose only

NOIDA: One wants residents who have been away for a day to produce ‘Covid-free’ certificates. Another proposes spraying anyone entering the compound with sanitiser.
RWA ‘safety manuals’ continue to get stranger, and more stringent, in the absence of clear guidelines from local administrations and police on protocols to be followed, increasing conflict with residents.

On Friday, for instance, residents of 16th Avenue at Gaur City in Noida Extension were greeted with a notice on the main gate — anyone returning to the society after being out for 24 hours would have to produce a certificate saying they are “Covid-free” to enter. A day before that, the AoA had forced a resident who had visited his sister in Ghaziabad to get a doctor’s certificate. “My sister was unwell, so I had to go get her. But they wouldn’t let us enter without a medical certificate,” the resident said.
In another case of overreach, in Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram, the RWA of a housing society sent out a message to residents that anyone stepping out would be “fully sanitised, head to toe, by the staff ” at the gate when they return. And only those in an “emergency” can step out, the message said — a sealing protocol for a locality that is not a hotspot.
Then there is the contentious territory of doorstep delivery — RWAs insist that essentials be dropped off at the main gate.
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This despite many residents arguing that doorstep delivery would actually reduce social interactions because making the long walk to the gate would mean coming across many more people other than the delivery executive.
Noida’s district magistrate Suhas LY had allowed delivery of essentials up to the doorstep a day after a TOI report had pointed out that people lining up to get their groceries at the gate was defeating the purpose of the lockdown. But while that was implemented in sectors, the final decision in housing societies had been left to the RWAs. That is what RWAs cite.
“We are allowing deliveries till the reception desk of each tower, as instructed by the authorities. The tower has been sanitised and if delivery personnel are allowed in, the tower would have to be sanitised again. The term ‘doorstep’ applies to plotted sectors and here, it means the tower gate. That is what the instructions given by the subdivisional magistrate and the DCP (deputy commissioner of police) say,” said Ravish Gupta, acting president of the Paras Tierea AoA. And so, residents continue to walk down to pick up deliveries.
While RWAs claim the decisions have been taken in consensus, many residents have alleged that they were not consulted. “My father is 76, my mother 68. Every day, one of them has to go all the way to the gate to collect essentials,” said Raja Bhattacharya, a resident of Prateek Fedora in Sector 61 whose parents live in Parsvnath Gardenia in the same sector. The RWA, however, said the decision was taken with residents on board. “We had formed a task force of RWA members and residents. The task force decided against doorstep delivery and residents backed them,” said CP Gupta, general secretary of the Parsvnath Gardenia Federation of RWAs.
The quarantine diktats, too, residents felt took things too far.
Some residents have approached the police to resolve the problems. “We have informed the administration about the complaints. A set of guidelines to be followed by AOAs and RWAs is in the pipeline,” said DCP (central Noida) Harish Chander.
The DM said it “would be best” if RWAs could come up with a system that would take care of the problems of all residents. “However, in the face of arbitrary diktats, we will put together some guidelines. Soon."
KP Chauhan, a member of the 16th Avenue AoA told TOI the notice was taken down after some people “misinterpreted” it.