On Tuesday, BMC has distributed zone-wise work to its seven additional municipal commissioners to curb the coronavirus havoc in Mumbai.
The BMC has given additional charge to A.L. Jarhad, Manisha Mhaiskar, Dr Ramaswal, Suresh Kakani, Jayshree Bhoj, Ashwini Bhide and P Velarasu who will ensure the positive case doubling rate is improved in Mumbai.
"The Additional Municipal Commissioners will adopt and administer following zones in addition to current charges," BMC commissioner Praveen Pardeshi said in a statement.
The additional municipal commissioners will mobilize staff in containment of virus and personally visit their zones every day.
FPJ on Friday first broke the news that BMC's mandate is to improve doubling rate of COVID-19 cases to 20 days from the existing 10 days in Mumbai by May 17.
On Thursday, a high level Central team headed by health ministry joint secretary Luv Agarwal on Thursday projected that if the coronavirus positive cases rise to 41,000 by May 27 from the present level of 11,394 in Mumbai, then the administration will face huge shortage of ICU beds, oxygen and related health infrastructure.
Therefore, the central committee has asked the state government and the BMC to strictly undertake steps on a war footing, which includes increase in the institutional quarantine facilities, stringent implementation of containment strategy, especially in over 2000 containment areas, and cluster containment. This can be done by stepping up house to house surveillance by roping in volunteers who can be given some incentive.
The Central team made a strong case for doubling rate of positive cases being slowed to 20 days from the present 10 in Mumbai. This means the present number of COVID-19 cases should double after 20 days. The BMC has been asked to achieve it by May 25.
The Central team mooted the formation of small clusters which will be combination of lanes and gullies where only designated persons and officials concerned will be allowed to enter while others will be prohibited. The committee suggested that PPE and mask should be made compulsory not just for doctors, nurses and paramedics but also for the designated persons and officials entering into containment zones and clusters to avoid infection.
