Residents question partial and full sealing of high-rises in Ghaziabad

Residents of some of the high-rises sealed by the Ghaziabad district officials have raised questions regarding the manner in which partial and full-sealing of buildings

Residents of some of the high-rises sealed by the Ghaziabad district officials have raised questions regarding the manner in which partial and full-sealing of buildings have been carried out during the ongoing lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus disease(Covid-19).

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Officials, on the other hand, have said that although the sealing orders were given for entire high-rises or buildings, ground-level decisions were made “judiciously”, in order to cause “minimum inconvenience” to the residents.

According to the officials, the Ghaziabad district at present has 16 hotspots, which also include various high-rises that have been either fully or partially sealed. The sealing has been carried out in areas from where one or more Covid-19 positive cases have been reported.

“There was only a single case of a Covid-19 positive patient in our high-rise. He was discharged from the hospital after testing negative. However, the entire building was sealed, although we have 13 different towers. Even now that the patient has turned negative, our high-rise is still sealed. There are about 1,300 occupied flats in our high-rise, and the residents facing are inconvenience ever since the sealing put in place,” said Mukesh Kumar, a resident of Oxy Home near Sahibabad. The high-rise had just one case pertaining to a 33-year-old man, working at a hospital in Delhi, who tested positive for Covid-19 on April 5.

“We want that since the patient has returned and there is no further case or any suspected cases, the rest of the towers, barring his own, should be de-sealed. But no one is listening to us,” he added.

Similar cases have surfaced in other parts of the district as well. Girnar Apartments was sealed in Kaushambi. The high-rise was later removed from the list of hotspots after no positive cases were reported even after 28 days since the first one surfaced on March 22.

“We have come to know that the written orders for the sealing of some high-rises mention the seizure of entire building. But at the ground-level only particular towers have been sealed. The officials must explain the criteria of sealing to residents. There cannot be any arbitrary or selective decisions, where in some cases, the entire building is sealed , while in others, selective towers are sealed,” said VK Mittal, president of the residents’ welfare association (RWA) of Kaushambi Apartments

Recently, HT accessed the orders for sealing of two high-rises, namely Exotica Elegance and ATS Advantage, in Indirapuram, where entire buildings were mentioned to be seized. However, only selective towers/blocks in the two high-rises were actually sealed. A single positive case in each of the high-rises was reported. In another recent case, the officials sealed the entire Supertech Residency in Vaishali, Sector 5.

HT approached Aditya Prajapati, the incident commander and the sub divisional magistrate, for his comments over the issue at least twice but he declined to comment. After HT approached district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey, he referred the matter to district malaria officer GK Mishra and authorised him to comment on the matter.

“The decision to seal single tower or the entire high-rise is taken after judicious consideration, keeping in mind that there is minimum inconvenience to the residents. The incident commander is authorised to seal but our consent (the consent of health department) is taken to reach the final decision. The geography of the buildings is also taken in consideration before sealing. If there is strict adherence to guidelines, majority areas in Ghaziabad would go under sealing as Covid-19 positive cases are high and spreading throughout the district,” Mishra said.

The officer said that decision to seal the entire high-rise of Savior Park, Mohan Nagar, was taken after a couple tested positive, who also had 93 possible contacts in different residential towers of the high-rise.

He added that high-rises like Oxy Homes, Savior Park in Mohan Nagar, a part of residential area of Vasundhara Sector-2B, Skardi Green near NH-9 and SCC Sapphire, Raj Nagar Extension have no additional Covid-19 positive cases.

“These high-rises will soon be put under the orange zone category as no further cases have been reported from them even after 14 days since the first positive case was reported. We will declare them under the orange zone soon and some relaxations will be allowed. But we have to checkt the guidelines to find out what relaxations can be given,” he added.

The red zones as defined by the Union health ministry, are the ones having “highest caseloads”. They are also referred to as hotspots, while the orange zones are areas where no Covid-19 case has been reported in the past 14 days.The officials said that there should be no positive Covid-19 case in a hotspot for 28 days, after the last patient was tested positive for it to move out of the list of hotspots.

Till Saturday night, a total of five high-rises or residential areas moved to Green zone from the list of 27 hotspots. “These include KDP Grand Savanna (Raj Nagar Extension), Girnar Apartment (Kaushambi), Shalimar Garden Extension 2, Vaishali Sector 6 and Savior Park, Mohan Nagar. No new case has been found in these areas in the last 28 days,” said CMO Dr NK Gupta.