Coronavirus: Durgiana Temple, Amritsar, hires two private medical teams

Amritsar The Durgiana Temple, which continues to see a footfall of 10,000 a day, has hired its own private medical team to screen devotees visiting its premises.

Amritsar The Durgiana Temple, which continues to see a footfall of 10,000 a day, has hired its own private medical team to screen devotees visiting its premises.

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Complaining about inadequate steps that the Punjab health department is taking, Shree Durgiana Committee (SDC), the body that manages the temple, president Ramesh Sharma said, “The health department sent only two doctors to screen devotees and that too for only a day. These doctors were untrained and ill-equipped. They did not even have adequate quantity of masks, sanitisers and thermometers to screen devotees.” He added that there had been no decline in footfall due to the outbreak of the disease.

The health department, however, continues to run the three self-declaration centres it had set up at the Golden Temple, the Durgiana Temple and Bhagwan Valmiki Tirath Sthal. At these centres, a team disseminates information and also advises people to go for voluntary testing, if they have the symptoms and have been to the countries most affected by the disease.

Sharma, however, claims, “There was little help from the health department. We have hired two medical teams from Shree Lakshmi Narayan Ayurvedic College, which is part of our umbrella organisation. One of the teams is sanitising the temple, and the second team of medical students is screening devotees at the entrance.”

Sharma claimed that the health department did not even conduct a meeting with them. “Even now, the health department should disinfect the temple. It is the duty of the department to take adequate precautionary measures,” he said.