Hyderabad: Following instructions from the State and Union governments, the Office of the Director-General of Police has taken some precautionary measures to contain the spread of highly infectious disease COVID-19, which has been characterized by the WHO as a pandemic.
According to the DGP’s order, the ministerial staff of the Chief Office has to work on alternate working days on a rotation basis to ensure that the physical contact among the individuals was minimized to the extent possible. All the staff members belonging to the category of Senior Assistants and below including outsourcing staff and Home Guards, who are attached to sections have to attend the office on alternative working days.
The Superintendent of each section was instructed to make arrangements to divide the staff working in their respective sections into two groups and to assign alternate days of their attendance in office so that work in the sections was not disturbed. Those who attend the office should look after the work in their section, irrespective of the seat. If only one Sr. Asst/Jr. Asst/DEO is available in any section, no alternative arrangements are necessary and they should attend the office daily on the working days, the order said.
It was also informed that alternate attendance to the office cannot be construed as a holiday. As it is treated as a working day only, each of the staff members should be available at their respective residences and should respond to the calls from the office. If necessary, they should come to the office on being informed by the office. It is an ‘on-duty and on-call’ arrangement. As it is an arrangement made on the lines of ‘work from home’, no employee should leave the headquarters to make themselves unreachable, like switching off phones or refusing or delaying to come to office if called for. If any employee requires to leave, prior permission of officer concerned is compulsory.
If any employee develops fever, cough, dry cough, body pains, he/she should immediately report the matter to DSP, Stores, so that precautions can be taken to prevent infection to others. The order will be effective March 20 till further orders, it is said.
No permission to public meetings, functions: DGP
Meanwhile, DGP M. Mahender Reddy held a meeting with police commissioners and Superintendents of Police of all the districts and issued guidelines to prevent the spread of the dreaded virus. He asked the police officials not to give any kind of permission to any public meeting, functions till the threat of the virus disappeared from the State.
The Police department also decided to keep a special watch on the propagation of fake news about the deadly coronavirus. It may be noted here that seven people have been reported positive on a single day in the State on Wednesday. With this, the total number of corona positive patients has gone up to 13 in the state.