Surge in city cases but no major spread in rural areas

Gurgaon: While Covid-19 cases in Gurgaon have crossed the 4,600 mark, the rural areas of the district remain mostly unaffected. Health department officials link this to strict vigilance imposed by villagers beyond measures recommended by the panchayats, and limited movement of people from outside.
There are a total of 203 panchayats in the district, out of which 38 are in Sohna block, 39 are in Gurgaon block, 75 in Pataudi and 51 in Farrukhnagar. The Gurgaon administration claimed that while no Covid cases were reported from these villages till May 31, now, there are a total of 90 cases in Dandhawas, Bashariya and Baskula villages in Pataudi, Naya Gaon in Sohna, and some rural areas in Farrukhnagar, which have been declared containment zones.
Health department officials said that the primary reason for fewer cases in the rural areas is because movement from outside is less. “In the urban areas in Gurgaon, we have people coming from neighbouring states and districts, who can be carriers of infection. For example, when Khandsa sabzi mandi started reporting several Covid cases, it was found that most of them had some connection with Delhi. However, such movement is less in villages of the district. Villages see less people coming from other states or hotspots,” said a health department official.
Currently, the district has a total of 1,832 active cases.
Another reason is that the villages in Gurgaon are not densely populated. The surge of cases has been seen in Gurgaon in the areas which are densely populated.
District development and panchayat officer Naresh Sarwan said that awareness was raised in the villages about disease and how to adopt preventive measures. Relief camps have also been organised by the district administration for industrial workers in these villages. People were being screened and symptomatic people were identified during the camps and were sent to the nearest health centres, he added.
On how these villages have managed to be free from Covid cases, he said that the villagers strictly adhere to instructions issued by their panchayats and other officials. Moreover, sanitisation is regularly conducted at all the common areas in these villages. “The villagers have been very cooperative and they have set up “thikri pehra” (vigilance) round the clock in their villages to keep a watch on the outsiders entering their villages. They stop every visitor and seek their details. Moreover, in villages, everyone knows everyone and they also know if somebody is symptomatic or not,” said Sarwan.
He added that in some places, the villagers themselves are screening visitors coming from outside the village. Moreover, teams have been constituted by the district administration to carry out sanitisation and awareness drives.
NGOs and corporate companies have provided masks and sanitisers to industrial workers living in these villages who cannot afford these safety kits, said the official.