Real battle against COVID-19 has started now: Ranjit Dutta

A CORRESPONDENT

LAKHIMPUR: "The real battle against the COVID-19 pandemic in the State is starting now with the screening of the returnees from other States. The elephantine task of bringing the native people back to the State, adequate screening of their health, keeping them in quarantine and conducting awareness among the masses cannot alone be completed by the State Government, or the Health Department or district administration. Each and every person of the society, being properly alert, must take part in the battle to beat the pandemic," said State Handloom, Textiles and Sericulture Minister Ranjit Dutta on Monday while interacting with the media persons of Lakhimpur.

Ranjit Dutta, who is in charge of Lakhimpur and Biswanath district regarding COVID-19 scenario, took part in a crucial meeting in the conference hall of the Deputy Commissioner's office in the presence of the Deputy Commissioner, the MLAs of the four LACs under the district and their representatives, district heads of the departments and Panchayati Raj Institution members.

Disclosing the decisions of the meeting, the minister said, "There are almost 15,000 people who are still to come back to the district. Only a total of 182 people have come back to the district till day. Two health screening centres to screen the health of this large number of people, one at Subansiri area and the other at Narayanpur area, have already been set up in the district. Arrangements are underway at present to set up large quarantine centres, one in each of the four LACs, in order to perform their health check-up and to quarantine them. Altogether 2,000 people can be kept in each of these quarantine centres."

He further added that a committee was formed in each of the LACs with the MLA as president which would supervise the whole process. According to him, such committees would be decentralized to panchayat level and ward level covering the social activists and PRI members. He said that investigation against alleged corruption in implementation of the relief packages during the lockdown was underway and no accused person would be exempted. 

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