Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Wednesday announced that every district in the union territory will have dedicated burial and cremation grounds for people who die from COVID-19 infection.
Chief Secretary, B V R Subrahmanyam, while taking stock of efforts toward mitigating COVID-19 threat, directed the deputy commissioners to notify cemetery and cremation grounds exclusively for COVID victims, so as to prevent any untoward incident regarding their last rites.
The administration on Wednesday also ordered another inquiry into the recent incident in which two men had died during last rites of their COVID-19 infected relative in Jammu.
Vimal Zadoo (42) and Vipin Zadoo (35), the two cousin brothers, had allegedly died due to dehydration on June 18 during cremation of their uncle who had succumbed to the coronavirus a day earlier, prompting the Jammu district administration to order a magisterial probe into the incident.
They had allegedly died due to dehydration and suffocation while moving from one place to another in search of cremation place for their deceased uncle.
Subrahmanyam directed the DCs to adopt liberal release policy at administrative quarantine centres.
He said if the quarantined persons test negative, as per existing Standard Operating Procedure, they can be sent to 'home quarantine' immediately.
The chief secretary directed the divisional commissioners of Jammu and Kashmir to undertake quality audits of administrative quarantine centres in respective provinces and suggest measures for improvement.
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Regarding exit policy for de-notification of red and containment zones, the chief secretary instructed allowing partial de-notification, if no new case is reported for 21 continuous days under existing protocol.
This will be followed by intensive and sentinel testing and if still no case is reported, then the zone will be de-notified after 30 days, he added.
To capture samples of increased number of travellers in coming days, the chief secretary asked the concerned district commissioners to enhance sampling capacities at all entry points including two airports and four railway stations.
Administrative secretaries of departments of Health & Medical Education, Information, Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction, and Mission Director, National Health Mission (NHM) participated in the meeting.
Divisional Commissioners of Jammu, Kashmir and all deputy commissioners attended the meeting through video conference.
PTI
