BMC assistant commissioner dies of Covid-19

In yet another tragic incident, assistant municipal commissioner Ashok Khairnar died due to the Covid-19 on Saturday. He is the second senior civic official to succumb

In yet another tragic incident, assistant municipal commissioner Ashok Khairnar died due to the Covid-19 on Saturday. He is the second senior civic official to succumb to Covid-19 after deputy municipal commissioner Shirish Dixit had died in June.

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The 57-year-old, was in charge of H-East ward (Bandra, Santacruz), which includes chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s private residence, Matoshree. Khairnar started feeling unwell and tested positive for Covid-19 in the first week of July. He was initially admitted to Gurunanak Hospital in Bandra but was later shifted to SevenHills Hospital in Andheri. After several treatment measures were ineffective, he was moved to Fortis Hospital, Mulund, where he died on Saturday while undergoing treatment. Civic officials suspect that he may have gotten infected while in the field.

Khairnar was at the forefront of implementing several containment measures to contain the spread of the Sars Cov-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, in Bandra.

In a press statement, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) praised the official for using effective containment strategies, testing and isolation which helped H-East ward to increase its doubling rate of cases to 134 days – the highest among the 24 wards, and for bringing down the growth rate in the ward to 0.5%.

Khairnar was in the service of the BMC from February 1988. Before becoming an assistant municipal commissioner, he was posted with the solid waste management (SWM) department as an executive engineer. He had taken on the post of assistant commissioner in January 2018.

“Today we lost @mybmcWardHE AC Ashok Khairnar ji to covid. As I offer my heartfelt condolences to his family, I might as well add that we have lost a covid hero today. He managed his ward with brilliance, the doubling day rate being at 134 and infection rate being lowest at 0.5%,” state tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray tweeted.