Administration to form committee to keep watch on gatherings, RWAs to be roped in

The district administration — along with officials drawn from the health department and police force — will form a committee to keep an eye on social gatherings in the district in wake of the surge in Covid-19 cases

The district administration — along with officials drawn from the health department and police force — will form a committee to keep an eye on social gatherings in the district in wake of the surge in Covid-19 cases. The committee will co-ordinate with Residents Welfare Associations (RWA), especially for the upcoming festival of Holi, to monitor compliance of all Covid-19 protocols in potential gatherings with large crowd.

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“As directed by the chief minister, the committee will have representatives from deputy commissioner’s office and those from the district health and police departments. The course of action is yet to be decided but letters will be sent to RWAs regarding events, where large crowd gathering is expected,” said Yash Garg, deputy commissioner of Gurugram on Friday.

On Friday, in a state-level meeting with chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and health minister Anil Vij, the district administration was directed to adopt several measures to control the resurgence of Covid infection, with special focus on keeping tabs on gatherings that have the potential of turning into super-spreader events.

On February 2, the district administration had lifted the ceiling on the number of people attending gatherings in closed spaces. Earlier, functions in closed spaces had an upper limit of 200 guests. However, now there is no cap on number of guests subject to the condition that the guest number is equal to or less than 50 percent of the hall’s capacity. In open spaces, there is no limit on the gathering but capacity of the place to accommodate people has to be considered. States can even issue their specific guidelines for regulations on social, religious, sports, entertainment, education, cultural or religious gathering, according to the Central government guidelines issued on January 27.

“Knowing that cases have increased in the last few days, we have been thinking to postpone the RWA’s Holi gettogether on March 27. Whatsapp messages are being sent to people to not hold any Holi celebrations in parks and to limit meeting people,” said Amir Singh Yadav, president, sector 15 (part 2) RWA. “We are also in the process of identifying eligible vaccine beneficiaries who have not taken the shots till now. They will be helped and encouraged to get vaccinated.”

Sunil Yadav, president, sector 47 RWA, however, said that it is difficult to keep vigil in non-gated societies. “It is easy to monitor activities in condominiums and gated societies. We will be soon sending messages on RWA Whatsapp groups to follow basic hygiene, mask wearing and social distancing norms during Holi,” said Yadav.