Guardian Minister Pijush Hazarika reviews COVID situation of Sootea LAC

CORRESPONDENTS

TEZPUR: State Water Resources Minister and Guardian Minister for Sonitpur district, Pijush Hazarika on Friday reviewed the COVID situation in Sootea LAC of Sonitpur district in a meeting held at PWD IB in Jamuguri while on his way to Biswanath for a review meeting with Biswanath district administration officials.

Also present were MLA Sootea Padma Hazarika, Guardian Secretary for Sonitpur district, Rajesh Prasad, Deputy Commissioner Bhupesh Chandra Das, Commandant 30 Bn CRPF Dinesh Singh Chandel, Superintendent of Police Dr Dhananjay Ghanawat, senior ADCs, Circle Officer and other officials. He is scheduled to hold a detailed review of the COVID situation in Sonitpur district with senior district administration and health department officials on Saturday morning.

Speaking to media persons after the meeting, minister Hazarika said that the administration had been forced to take strict action against lockdown violators as enforcement was the only way to bring down the number of COVID positive cases. He also said that directions had been issued to conduct extensive excise raids in the area, as it had been noticed that illegal liquor dens had become hotspots of COVID cases.

During the review by the Guardian Minister and Secretary, the officials were asked to identify areas where people were violating lockdown and resort to area domination through police and CRPF forces. The police have been asked to intensify checking by setting up check posts at crucial locations and take stringent action against all violators.

Earlier on Thursday evening, Principal Secretary to the Government of Assam for Transport, Irrigation, Excise departments, and Guardian Secretary for Sonitpur district, Rajesh Prasad, took a detailed review of the prevailing COVID-19 situation in Sonitpur district at a meeting held at the conference hall of the Deputy Commissioner's office.

Present in the meeting were Deputy Commissioner Bhupesh Chandra Das, Commandant, 30 Bn CRPF, Dinesh Singh Chandel, SP Dr Dhananjay Ghanawat, all senior district administration and health department, excise officials, among others. The Guardian Secretary took a detailed review of the testing and positivity rate in the district in the last 10 days. He asked the health department officials to identify the COVID hotspots in the district and directed them to ramp up testing in such vulnerable areas. He directed the officials to ensure that no COVID positive patients were prescribed home isolation unless it was absolutely unavoidable.

He directed the SP to take help from paramilitary forces to enforce strict lockdown in the district. He also directed the police to impose fines on anyone found defying COVID-19 protocol and asked the police to take swift penal action against violators. He also asked the Deputy Commissioner to mobilize all field level functionaries such as lot mandals, gaon burhas, ASHA/ Anganwadi workers, VDPs, PRI functionaries to ensure enforcement of lockdown in their respective areas of jurisdiction. The Guardian Secretary, who is also Principal Secretary for Excise and Irrigation departments, held a separate review meeting with the officials of these departments and took stock of the progress of works being implemented in the district. He also directed the Excise department officials to intensify excise raids across the district.

JAMUGURIHAT: Guardian Minister Pijush Hazarika visited Jamugurihat on his way to Biswanath Chariali on Friday. Notably, the COVID scenario of Jamugurihat has remained unchanged for long due to the negligence of COVID protocol by some people. Hazarika held a review meeting at the Inspection Bungalow, Jamugurihat in presence of Sootea MLA Padma Hazarika, Principal Secretary Rajesh Prasad, including Sonitpur DC, SP and other health officials. Addressing media persons, minister Hazarika said, "Police should take strict action against illicit liquor suppliers and sellers of country-made liquor." He further appealed to the general public to obey COVID protocol.

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