COVID-19: Jammu secretariat to be sanitized after senior bureaucrat tested positive

Srinagar: Two days after a senior bureaucrat – who attended a meeting without following the prevention guidelines for incoming travellers – tested positive for the coronavirus infection, authorities on Monday have started sanitization of the Jammu secretariat which houses among others the offices of Lieutenant Governor and his advisors, according to local newswire Global News Service.

According to GNS, at least 86 government officials, including cadres of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS), have been identified as the immediate contacts of the Commissioner Secretary who has tested positive.

The officer has been hospitalised at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Narayana super-specialty hospital in Kakryal in Reasi district on Sunday morning while other senior bureaucrats are quarantined either at their homes or in hotels as samples are collected for testing, reported the Hindustan Times.

The newspaper quoted an unnamed doctor to say that the senior bureaucrat should not have attended the meeting and in doing so, he had “behaved carelessly and has put others into risk”. Meanwhile, the GNS quoting unnamed government sources has reported that 45 contacts of the senior IAS officer have been identified in Jammu and 41 in Kashmir.

The secretariat is currently functional in Jammu despite the annual Durbar Move. The Jammu and Kashmir administration had cited the spread of the pandemic to keep the offices in Jammu functional while allowing its staff hailing from Kashmir to return to the Valley.

KW