Expedite tracing of Tablighi attendees, Centre tells States

Enforce quarantine, says govt.; PM to hold video call with Chief Ministers today

02/04/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,NEW DELHI

Mapping one and all: Participants from Agartala at the Delhi Tablighi meet being taken for tests on Wednesday.PTI

Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on Wednesday held a videoconference with the Chief Secretaries of all the States a day after the Tablighi Markaz at Nizamuddin was evacuated and the area — the latest COVID-19 hotspot — put under an intense lockdown.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to hold a video call with all the Chief Ministers on Thursday. A government statement said Mr. Gauba “sensitised” the Chief Secretaries that contact tracing of the congregation attendees (spread over multiple States) be undertaken on a war footing and quarantine procedures enforced.

He also stressed that many of the congregation had violated visa terms.

While appreciating that on the whole the lockdown was being implemented well, he said all the benefits announced by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana be disbursed within the week.

Supply chain worries have been top of the mind with the government allowing transport of all goods across various State borders last week. But Mr. Gauba again told the Chief Secretaries that this needed to be smoothed further and that manufacture and supply of goods, especially essential ones, be maintained across the States.

India has entered the second week of a three-week lockdown over the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, the country saw its largest spike in COVID-19 positive cases, more than 200 in over 24 hours, as the Tablighi Markaz case came to light.