The state disaster management authority under the home department has appointed 12 senior IAS officers as nodal officers of 24 districts for daily coordination and monitoring of the Covid-19 situation.
The move, according to officials in the disaster management department, is aimed for better surveillance, monitoring and helping local district administrations to work in tandem to curb the unprecedented rise of Covid cases in the state.
On Friday, Jharkhand witnessed its biggest single day spike and casualties since the outbreak of the virus with 1925 new infections and 17 fatalities.
Chief secretary Sukhdev Singh on Friday night formally issued the notification naming the bureaucrats as nodal officers for the assigned districts.
According to the notification, state urban development department secretary Vinay Kumar Choubey has been made the nodal officer of Ranchi district, while his counterpart in food and civil supplies department, Himani Pande is tasked with taking care of East Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharsawan. Secretary of department of planning and finance Ajoy Kumar Singh is in-charge of Dhanbad and Deoghar, secretary of commercial taxes, Vandana Dadel will take care of Koderma and Ramgarh districts.
Rural development secretary Aradhana Patnaik is tasked for Latehar and Lohardaga whereas Rahul Sharma, finance secretary will be handling Khunti and West Singhbhum. Road construction department secretary Sunil Kumar is nodal officer for Bokaro and Giridih, Puja Singhal (industries department) will handle Hazaribagh and Chatra, Rajesh Sharma (school education) Pakur and Sahebganj, AB Siddique (agriculture) Palamau and Garhwa, Praveen Toppo (labour department) Gumla and Simdega and Prashant Kumar (water resources) is the nodal officer for Jamtara, Dumka and Godda.
“All the nodal officers are mandated to act as observers for their assigned districts to ensure proper testing, tracking, treatment, vaccination and all other Covid tackling workers in coordination with respective deputy commissioners to control the emerging situation. All nodal officers are also required to give appropriate directions to the district administrations to ensure Covid appropriate behaviour is followed and implemented properly besides working out plans to curb the transmission,” read the order signed by the chief secretary, adding that nodal officers are also entrusted with powers to take decisions/actions as required from time to time for implementation of central and state government orders and advisories for tackling Covid-19.
Since mid-March, the state has been witnessing a steady rise in infections with daily caseload breaking previous year records. Since the start of April, the spikes have skyrocketed with the state reporting over 1000 cases on an average for the last few days.
