Bengal home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay and a joint secretary in the home department went for self-isolation from Wednesday as the duo had come in direct contact with the bureaucrat whose son tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
The home secretary’s wife, Calcutta University vice-chancellor Sonali Chakraborty Bandyopadhyay, also went for self-isolation.
“The officials, who had come in direct contact with the woman bureaucrat whose son tested positive on Tuesday, have been asked to put themselves in home isolation until the result of their Covid-19 examination comes. This is a precautionary measure and had to be taken for general welfare,” a senior government official said on Wednesday.
In the evening, the results came and the woman officer, her doctor husband and their driver and domestic help tested negative for Covid-19. This brought huge relief to the administrative circles at Nabanna.
“Thank god that the test result is negative. If the result had been positive, the entire top tiers of the administration would have had to come under the health department’s scanner,” said a source.
Some health department officials said another round of test awaited the Covid-19 patient’s mother but details of the process were not clear. It was also not clear whether Alapan Bandyopadhyay would be out of self-isolation as she tested negative for the infection.
The entire administration was eagerly awaiting the result of the tests as the woman IAS officer had come to Nabanna on Monday for a discussion with the home secretary over some inter-state issues.
“There was no symptom of Covid-19 in the boy till Monday. So, the bureaucrat had come to Nabanna, although top government officials had repeatedly urged her to stay home till the son cleared the tests,” said a source.
Sources said the woman officer had wanted to brief her seniors on developments that had taken place on Saturday and Monday when the home department issued a series of orders to set up 78 health screening camps along the borders with Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.
“The officer was repeatedly asked not to come to office. In this day and age, she could have talked to other officials over the phone,” said an official.
Since Tuesday night, the authorities had been scanning CCTV footage to find out where all the woman officer had gone at Nabanna. The authorities locked her chamber before sanitising the entire state secretariat on Wednesday.
It was found that the officer had spent around 10 minutes in her chamber on the fifth floor before meeting Bandyopadhyay in his chamber on the 13th floor.
Later on Monday, the woman officer’s driver had visited Writers’ Buildings.
“The office and the lift that the driver had used at the Writers’ Buildings were also sanitised. We are trying to locate all people with whom the bureaucrat and the driver had a direct contact,” said another official.
Sources said the entire administration was keeping fingers crossed.
“If the report had been positive, particularly of the bureaucrat, the entire administration would have faced a real crisis as the home secretary, who had come direct contact with the woman officer, later attended a meeting with the chief minister and chief secretary Rajiva Sinha, besides hundreds of senior officials,” said a source.
“It would have been really embarrassing for the government to send so many senior officers for health screening or to put them in isolation at one go,” the source added.
The CPM and the BJP criticised the government and the woman officer for alleged negligence.
“It was very irresponsible on the bureaucrat’s part. The government should identify who else was involved and take exemplary action,” said CPM state-secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra.
Sayantan Basu, a state general-secretary of the BJP, said: “She took her son to public places. She herself visited Nabanna and met the secretaries and ministers.”
