Dushyant Chautala directs officials in districts to inform about people who travelled from abroad

Haryana's Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala on Saturday directed district officials to inform about people who have travelled to their villages in the state from abroad during the past 15 days.

He was presiding over a review meeting regarding COVID-19 arrangements being done in rural areas of Haryana.

Chautala also directed the officials to inform about persons who have come to their villages during the past fortnight from other states or cities.

The meeting, which was held through video conference, was attended by additional deputy commissioners, and district development and panchayat officers, an official release said here.

Chautala directed the officials to inform "about the people who have come to the villages in the last 15 days from abroad or from other states or cities, and if such persons have come then the sanitisation of the entire village should be done with a spray of sodium chloride and such persons should be quarantined immediately by informing the district administration," it said.

The release, quoting Chautala, said that there is a possibility of some NRIs living in Punjab could visit districts in Haryana, including Ambala, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Jind, Fatehabad and Sirsa.

Therefore, the sarpanch of each village which borders Punjab have been asked to take "special care and not allow anyone to enter and if anyone enters, then the same should be reported to the district administration immediately," it said.

The sarpanches will have to keep a close watch in their respective villages, Chautala said.

He said the nationwide lockdown period till April 14 "is very crucial for all of us and we all have to fight this pandemic together".

The deputy chief minister also informed that the central government has granted permission to farmers to go to the fields for harvesting of their crops, provided that they follow social distancing.

He said sarpanches would also have to take special care of this and people will also have to be motivated to maintain social distancing.

The deputy chief minister said that panchayats which would do good work to stop the spread of coronavirus would be presented as a model in the country and would be specially honoured.

It was informed that all the sarpanches of Rai block of Sonipat district and village panchayats of Faridabad district have announced to donate their six months honorarium towards the Haryana COVID Relief Fund.

Haryana has so far recorded 20 COVID-19 cases.