PPE-clad worker leaves food outside locked gate at Agra quarantine centre

Shahira Naim
Tribune News Service
Lucknow, April 27 

Several video clips of a quarantine centre in Agra have gone viral showing a PPE-clad worker leaving food and water bottles outside locked iron gates, forcing inmates to jostle and push to get hold of them.

The centre is one of the institutions of the Sharda Group of Institutions in the city that has been taken over as a corona quarantine centre.

In one video clip posted by a woman inside the centre, she charges the district administration of bringing them here on the pretext of conducting checkups.

“No checkups are being conducted. I am one of them over here. I was told that my medical checkup would be conducted at Sarojini Naidu Medical College. Both the doctors and administration are showing apathy of every kind. Neither are the inmates fed properly nor getting anything to drink”.

After the clips went viral Agra District Magistrate Prabhu Naranyan Singh spoke to reporters and said that he had already gone to the centre twice and plugged all the gaps.

“The Chief Development Officer has been asked to investigate the matter and fix responsibility as there was a separate team formed to handle this task. The team has been asked to work properly and to ensure that such complaints are not received again,” said the Agra DM.

The video clip assumes significance, as Agra is the worst district in Uttar Pradesh with 372 positive cases and 10 deaths. It was the district where the first positive case was reported as early as the first week of March. It has 84 hotspots.

Just a day ago Agra Mayor Naveen Jain’s letter had gone viral on the social media. In the letter written to the chief minister, Yogi Aditynath Jain pleaded with him to save his city.

In the April 21 letter that has now been shared on the social media by Congress President Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Jain blames the Agra official machinery of all-round failure.

“My Agra is in crisis. Hard decisions are needed. With folded hands I plead with you to save my Agra,” says the letter, a copy of which has also been sent to Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who is in charge of Agra district.

In his letter, the mayor has pointed out the scarcity of milk and fresh vegetables as well as ill-equipped hospitals to cater to the rising cases.

He has pointed out that for days no officer was visiting quarantine centres that have been since been declared hotspots.

Virtually substantiating the video clip, Jain charged that there wasn’t any proper arrangement of food or drinking water for the persons staying at the quarantine centres.

“In government hospitals, no non-corona patient is being attended to which has turned the situation explosive”, said Jain.

“All promises of doorstep delivery are a farce. The officials have failed to make it work. The CMO has been unsuccessful to even ensure facilities at the district hospital. Senior officials remain at home. They come out barely for 15-20 minutes for photo opportunities for the record. The government’s image is being tarnished,” alleged the mayor.

Reproducing the Agra mayor’s letter in a tweet Priyanka Gandhi Vadra urged the UP government to take immediate steps before the matter goes out of hand.

Advising the state government to take the mayor’s letter in a positive spirit, Priyanka asked the state government to take constructive steps to save the people of Agra to survive the pandemic.