PMC makes housing societies’ chairpersons accountable to make the residents home quarantined.

Finding it hard to keep a tab on people being asked to be home-quarantined to control coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has now placed the responsibility on the chairpersons of housing societies to see if the respective residents are being confined.

The officials of the civic body have agreed to send the list of people requested for home quarantine to the chairpersons who, in effect, would have to notify PMC whether the residents meet the norms. However, the housing societies’ officer-bearers have said that it is nearly impossible for them to obey it, so the citizens in quarantine must take good control of it themselves.

While the number of people testing for COVID-19 disease rises, the administration of the district is working hard to keep residents confined to their houses. Within their homes are quarantined those with travel records or with certain signs, whilst others with near connections are kept in institutional isolation or sent to the hospitals.

At least 1,778 people are quarantined in PMC limits as of March 23. Around 1,021 in the region of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, 109 within Nagarpalika limits, 228 in the region of Zilla Parishad and 35 in the cantonment area. The quarantined cumulative amount of people stands at 3171. Despite numerous precautions being taken, the quarantined citizens were noticed not following steps to distance themselves socially. Despite this, authorities have now agreed to move a step forward towards introducing more strict measures.

The civic body issued a new quarantine order after a meeting of PMC officials on 22 March. As per the decree, the responsibility of the quarantined patients will now be with the office-bearers of the society. PMC Commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad said, “We have begun placing stamps on the hands of quarantined patients and even placing stickers on their houses. We will now send the list of quarantined citizens to the chairperson of the society and ask them to keep an eye on those residents. If the chairpersons spot them outside of their quarantined space, they’ll need to tell us so we can take further action.

The office-bearers of society obviously are not satisfied with the change. Harish Navale, Chairman of Rohan Ishan, Bavdhan, said, “We’re still doing this at our level. We’re not only holding an eye on it, but we’re also supporting people under quarantine by supplying medicine and grocery, but creating compulsion and putting the burden on us might not be correct in this case. If the office-bearers are asked to take responsibility, we may have to withdraw from those positions.”

Chairman of the society on Sinhagad Road where the city’s first positive cases surfaced, said, “It will be impossible to do this. If we take an example of my building alone, there are 53 flats. If there are four flats where people are home-quarantined, how do we keep an eye 24×7? It is for the people to understand the seriousness and take steps to ensure that they don’t spread the infection further.”