The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is carrying out door-to-door verification in 10 lakh buildings to identify any person infected with COVID19. Around 16,000 workers are deployed to carry out the task that started on March 5.

SP Velumani, Minister for Municipal Administration, while addressing the newspersons on March 4 said that as many as 16,000 workers will reach out to houses to get information from residents. “The Corporation has developed a system to monitor the health of all residents. We request residents to cooperate with the workers and give information on symptoms. The entire city, with 10 lakh buildings, has been divided into 13,100 sectors. Each sector will have 75-100 buildings. The workers will visit all houses in a sector, for three months, to gather information on a regular basis. The workers will get Rs 15,000 a month and will be provided with personal protective equipment.”

Moreover, the GCC had made arrangements for providing shelter and food to stranded people in 41 relief camps, 38 night shelters and 13 special shelters. As many as 4,738 stranded people have been provided with the assistance from the civic body as of yet, added Velumani.

Further talking on the provisions made for feeding the homeless, Velumani said, Amma Canteens, at around 407 locations in the Tamil Nadu capital, have distributed 26.32 lakh idlis, 7.27 lakh rice parcels and 15.03 lakh chapattis during the lockdown. A lot many homeless persons and stranded people have benefited from the distribution of food at the Canteens.

Elaborating on preventive measures against the COVID19 spread, he said that the state has issued orders to distribute 11.50 lakh masks. Procurement orders for 6 lakh gloves and a thousand N-95 masks for doctors have been issued. As much as 2,000 litres of hand sanitiser, 50,000 litres of disinfectant and 328 tonnes of bleaching powder is being used to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Chennai, added Velumani.

(Source: eGov Online)