Tirupati: All contacts of Nizamuddin meet returnees to be quarantined

Tirupati: The district administration has embarked on a massive and ticklish task of collecting the details of about 400 contacts of Tablighi Jamaat (New Delhi) returnees in Chittoor district so as to bring all of them for admission into quarantine centres for close observation, said District Collector Dr Narayana Bharath Gupta.

Speaking to the media after the `Task Force' meeting held here on Wednesday, the District Collector said in the aftermath of four of the 85 participants of the New Delhi religious congregation from the district found Covid 19 positive on Wednesday, the district administration covering the Revenue, Police, Medical and Health departments swung into action to collect the details of the contacts and also for the admission of all the participants of the meeting in the quarantine centres.

"The medical examination of the 49 returnees who were so far identified in the district will be done immediately to find out any other positive cases among the returnees of the religious meeting,'' the Collector said.

Panchayat Raj Minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy appealed to the Nizamuddin Markaz attendees and their contacts including relatives and friends to voluntarily come forward for tests and also urged the people to alert anyone in their neighbourhood recently who returned from abroad or from other States.

The Minister said the meet discussed various issues raised by both the officials and non-officials with regard to containment of Covid-19 which would be sorted out with the cooperation of the government.

He said that he had instructed the Collector to take steps for providing support price to water melon, musk melon and tomato to save the farmers in the western part of the district suffering with lack of remunerative price for their produce for want of marketing due to lockdown, with the approval of Marketing Commissioner.

Despite Collector issued permission to the farmers to transport their produce. However, private transporters are reluctant to take them to the far away cities leading to the farmers unable to sell tomatoes, water melon and musk melon in the district.

Deputy Chief Minister K Narayana Swamy urged the people to confine themselves to their homes and sought the members of the minority community to pray at their homes till the situation improves.

He said that positive cases surged fast in the last two days in the State with many of the Delhi religious meeting returnees contracting Covid-19 and wanted them to cooperate with government to contain coronavirus.