Mumbai: In order to ensure more effective and efficient execution and monitoring of COVID-19 related activities, Municipal Commissioner Iqbal S. Chahal on Tuesday issued an order on allocation of work among eight IAS officers.
This comes on the heels of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray setting an ambitious target for the BMC -- that the Mumbai city be fully converted into a green zone by end of May.
Tuesday's order is crucial as the Union ministry of health joint secretary Luv Agarwal, in his presentation on May 7, had painted a bleak picture of Mumbai city and projected that COVID 19 positive cases will surge to 41,000 by May 27; at that point, the BMC will face an acute shortage of ICU beds, oxygen, isolation and quarantine facilities. In a serious bid to contain the spread of virus and restore normalcy in the maximum city, Chahal has distributed work among the eight officers.
So, Principal Secretary Manisha Mhaiskar will look after the augmentation of Covid beds in BMC hospitals. All hospital deans and heads will report to her. Besides, she will coordinate with the group especially created for improving outcomes in Covid care and treatment in BMC hospitals.
It will be her responsibility to see that there will be continuous decongestion of hospitals as per the established protocols. This is in the wake of recent video clips which have gone viral of bodies being kept next to COVID 19 patients in Sion hospital.
Principal Secretary and additional commissioner Ashwini Bhide will have oversight over contact tracing, institutional quarantine, and containment zone management. She will coordinate Covid strategy and war room monitoring and dashboard updating and dissemination to all other officers. She will be in charge for the creation and oversight of Covid Care Centres.
Additional commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal will look into food grain procurement and distribution and coordination with NGOs and public representatives, as well as supply chains in containment zones.
He has been tasked with the formulation and implementation of policy of relaxing of restrictions of lockdown in phased manner and liaising with the state government for COVID 19 related issues.
Prajakta Lavangare Verma, who is Secretary Marathi Language in the state government, will coordinate with Covid Yodha volunteers to appoint doctors, nurses, ward boys and other staff for various BMC and private hospitals. It will be her responsibility to appoint medical staff for enhancing the bed capacity of Seven Hills Hospital to 1300 beds.
In addition, she will look at elderly citizens, comorbidity, and actions thereunder. Additional Commissioner P Vlarasu is in charge of completion of pre-monsoon preparedness issues of major, minor nallas and pumping stations; he will look at international travellers, their screening, travel, and quarantining.
Additional Commissioner Suresh Kakani will take care of all major hospitals, peripheral hospitals, primary health facilities and the management of medical colleges. He will ensure implementation of testing regime, formulation of discharge protocol and administration of health department.
Additional Commissioner Dr N Ramaswami will be responsible for operation of quarantine and isolation facility at Seven Hills, training and making available all medical and supporting staff. Joint Commissioner (Vigilance) Ashuthosh Salil will have a major responsibility of creation of jumbo facility of Covid Care Centres and maintenance of inventory of all possible locations of such facilities.
