Mumbai: A day after he took over as the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation Commissioner, Iqbal Chahal had a busy day Saturday. Chahal, who belongs to the 1989 IAS batch, visited Dharavi and BYL Nair Hospital.
The new civic chief chose to visit Dharavi as it is a hotspot in Mumbai with a total of 833 COVID-19 positive cases and 27 deaths as on date.
On Saturday, 25 new cases with one death were reported. Chahal visited the densely populated Mukund Nagar and Shashtri Nagar areas in Dharavi slums and interacted with the residents and inquired about the availability of essential goods.
He also supervised the condition of toilets and directed the BMC staff to increase the cleaning of public toilets to five times instead of twice per day as suggested by the central team, headed by the Union Health Ministry joint secretary Luv Agarwal. He also asked the local BMC staff to pay more attention to sanitisation and cleanliness of the lanes and by-lanes.
He asked the police officers on duty to strictly implement lockdown norms to avoid crowding or movement of vehicles. Chahal’s visit comes three after the Agarwal-led team showed BMC’s shortcomings in the implementation of the coronavirus containment strategy.
The team had expressed displeasure over BMC’s delays in adding the institutional quarantine facilities in Dharavi even after the suggestion made by the inter-ministerial central team’s visit about 20 days ago.
Taking a cue from there, Chahal directed the BMC medical staff to admit high-risk persons and COVID-19 contacts in the institutional quarantine facilities at the earliest to curb virus spread in the area.
Earlier, Chahal started his day by visiting the BYL Nair hospital wearing personal protective kit and mask. He took the round, held meetings with the doctors, and visited wards where COVID-19 patients are undergoing treatment.
BMC has earmarked 531 beds for COVID-19 patients in BYL Nair hospital, of which 53 are in ICU and 110 beds are for pregnant women. He asked the hospital staff to avoid lapses in treatment and health services.
