People who repeatedly violate home isolation/quarantine norms will be booked under the relevant provisions of IPC and the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
The Chennai Corporation has formed COVID Response Teams (CRTs) at the division level comprising officials from various departments and also roped in 250 police personnel to assist the teams in ensuring that people under home isolation/quarantine stayed in their houses for the mandated period.
Stepping up efforts to break the chain of COVID-19 spread in the city and as part of the Home Quarantine & Isolation Management System (HQIMS), an coordinated initiative to ensure fool proof quarantine system, The Chennai Corporation has formed the CRTs by involving its own officials, police constables and volunteers to stop the transmission chain of coronavirus, official sources said on Thursday.
Police personnel were posted for tracing contacts of COVID-19 positive patients. Home isolation/quarantine was put in place to ensure that the COVID-19 positive individuals, their contacts, returnees from foreign countries, domestic flight/train passengers, inter-state road travellers and any other notified individuals adhered to the mandatory 14 days self-isolation at their homes. However, after the spike in cases in recent days, Corporation Commissioner G. Prakash and other senior officials reviewed the multi-pronged strategies in combating the virus.
It was decided to form CRTs to monitor people under isolation/home quarantine on a daily basis. A list of such homes would be shared with the teams to facilitate door-to-door monitoring.
The teams would physically verify and make sure that those mandated to remain home-bound were following the instructions and report the same through a web application. They would also assist such people in the supply of basic needs such as medicines, provisions etc.
“Where repeated violation of the norms is noted, the team concerned would lodge a complaint with the local police under IPC and the Disaster Management Act, 2005 for booking of FIR on such identified repeated offenders,” a senior official said.
The move comes a week after Chief Secretary K. Shanmugam wrote to Mr. Prakash pointing to certain gaps in the approach to managing COVID-19 and called for revising the strategy.
