Alarmed over the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in districts around Chennai, the State has forged a new plan for micro-management of cases from rural and urban areas in Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu.
Chief Secretary K. Shanmugam chaired a meeting with senior officials and police officers, part of the Field Support Teams (FST), in this regard, at the Secretariat on Saturday.
Though Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu are separate districts, they are “inextricably connected” to the State capital and people from these districts are to be considered Chennaiites even though they are not residents of the district, a senior official said. Hence, a specific strategy is necessary, the official added.
“Many of the cases reported are from Chennai suburbs, and unlike Chennai, a separate strategy is to be adopted because these districts have both urban and rural areas,” he said.
In rural areas of these districts, awareness about COVID-19 was higher and this helped in containment efforts. But this wasn’t the case in urban areas.
“There is a need to micro-manage these areas. Street-specific and area-specific strategies are needed,” officials said.
Lack of planning
Officials felt that the lack of planning in Chennai, in the initial stages, had resulted in the inability to control the number of cases in areas under the Greater Chennai Corporation. But with a Special Officer and five Ministers designated to supervise efforts, the government was now hopeful, they added.
It may be recalled that though FSTs were constituted for Chennai and other cities in the State earlier, the government reconstituted them to focus only on Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu districts, following the rise in the number of cases.
