New Delhi: The coronavirus pandemic reached the doors of the nerve-centre of Indian defence establishment on Wednesday when Union defence secretary Ajay Kumar, a top official at the forefront of India’s war against the virus, tested positive for COVID 19.
The news of the infection of India’s top defence bureaucrat comes at a time when the country, besides the virus, is also facing big trouble in the border with China.
“The defence secretary has tested positive for COVID 19. The news has come out today itself,” a source told ETV Bharat late Wednesday night. Kumar was not seen in his South Block office on Wednesday.
Kumar is a 1985 batch Kerala cadre IAS officer and is part of most important meetings of the government including the PMO and especially those relating to defence and security.
Further details on the development on whether Kumar was showing symptomatic or asymptomatic symptoms or whether he had been hospitalized are awaited.
The South Block building houses the defence ministry and the foreign affairs ministry with the PMO towards the west.
The development of Kumar’s infection is considered serious because the top defence ministry bureaucrat remains in regular and close contact with the defence minister, the chief of defence staff and the three chiefs of the Army, Navy and the Air Force. Kumar also regularly meets a host of top military officials, bureaucrats and other employees in the ministry.
Other than the IAF chief whose office is located nearby at Vayu Sena Bhavan, most of the other top military officials have their offices at the same floor in close proximity to that of Kumar’s office. The offices of the defence minister, the defence secretary, the Army Chief and the Navy Chief are on the first floor of the South Block. The sources said all laid down protocols on contact-tracing and quarantining of people are being scrupulously followed.
Recently, the secretary’s interactions had increased manifold because of the planning and preparations for the coronavirus pandemic and the Indian-China military faceoff near the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh although video conferencing had been resorted to in order to maintain social distance.
On April 20, Kumar had told ETV Bharat in an exclusive interview how every organ of the defence ministry including the three armed branches were supporting the government’s efforts to fight the pandemic.
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However, it remains unclear whether secretary Kumar came in contact with any of the service chiefs, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Rawat or Defence minister Rajnath Singh over the last few days.
