Quarantine must to check Covid spread: Bihar CM

PATNA: Highlighting the importance of bock-level quarantine centres, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Wednesday said if the returning migrant workers are not kept there, the Covid-19 infection would spread to villages and could lead to serious problem in the state.
“Block quarantine centre is the most important strategy in the direction of checking the Covid-19 spread. It will be very effective in checking community spread of the infection. If returning migrant workers are not kept at the block level centres, the Covid infection would spread to villages and it can lead to a very serious problem,” CM told the state government officials at a review meeting on the coronavirus and related issues.
He also asked the officials to ensure proper arrangements of food, lodging and medical facilities at each block level quarantine centre so that people staying there do not face any difficulties.
The CM said the number of Covid-19 positive cases was increasing at a faster pace these days mainly because of planned testing of returning migrant workers at the block level quarantine centres. “People should not be panicky because of the recent rise in the positive cases, because the testing of migrant workers will yield a positive result in coming days,” he said.
Nitish further gave a 5-point task to all the officers engaged in providing relief to the people affected by the nationwide lockdown and asked them to implement the task with all sincerity.
The five points are: Provide employment to all returnee migrant workers as per the skill mapping, ensure availability of a valid ration card to all poor families across the state, ensure speedy distribution of agriculture input subsidy to provide necessary relief to farmers, sanction social security pension to all deserving persons and ensure immediate transfer of pension money in their bank accounts and make arrangements for at least 10,000 testings per day to detect Covid-19 cases.
Nitish asked the industries department officials to take the challenges of lockdown as a new opportunity and provide employment to maximum possible people in the local industries as per the skill mapping.