Officers told to ensure availability of daily-use items

LAHORE:It is the prime responsibility of civil and police officers to provide healthcare facilities to people to deal with the national emergency of coronavirus.

For ensuring availability of daily-use commodities to the citizens during the lockdown, the officers would have to work day and night, said Punjab chief secretary Punjab Major (r) Azam Suleman Khan while addressing a meeting held to review the situation in the province on Thursday.

The meeting was attended by Punjab Law Minster Raja Basharat, Inspector General of Police Shoaib Dastgir and other officers concerned, whereas, divisional commissioners and regional police officers (RPOs) joined the meeting through video conferencing.

The chief secretary (CS) asked all the divisional commissioners to complete mapping of all private hospitals and hotels in districts after taking their administration on board so that the buildings could be used in case of spread of coronavirus.

He directed that all required facilities be provided at quarantine centres and joint check points of police, army and Rangers personnel be set up to make the lockdown more effective. The meeting took important decisions to ensure availability of daily-use items and discourage panic buying.

The CS was briefed that process of tracing the people who came from abroad had been completed; services of Lambardars had been acquired for their tracking and action would be taken against those Lambardars who would not cooperate with the government.

The meeting decided that in order to raise awareness among people about coronavirus, flag march of army, Rangers and police would be carried out, besides seeking help of prayer leaders and local elders.

Law Minister Raj Basharat lauded the performance of officers and said that elected representatives in districts should also be taken on board in the process of distribution of food hampers among the deserving families whose bread earners were in quarantine or isolation. The IG ordered the RPOs to improve cleanliness arrangements in lockups of police stations. The meeting decided to start monitoring of prisoners in jails regarding coronavirus.