Amid the corona pandemic, revenue officials like employees of other essential services are at the forefront in the fight against the deadly disease.
The role of the revenue officials, especially the onesworking in red zones has increased manifolds.
Initially, there job was only to collect information aboutpeople with travel history.
“We used to track these people and present their travelhistory, name and age to the administration for further investigation,” saidIshfaq Ahmad, who works as a Patwari in Hajin.
But with the surge in cases in red zones, there was gradualaddition to their duties. “Now our duties include maintaining details of newpeople entering the area, send them to quarantine centres, allot these peoplerooms and coordinating movement of health care workers. Our duty is also tosend suspects for screening and testing,” said another revenue officialMehraj-Ud-Din Dar of Shahgund village.
He spends most of his time in the field duty in the red zonevillages. Besides, these revenue officials are also now required to send areport of number of case registered against the restriction violators in thered zones.
All this workload has put a lot of strain on these officialsand was affecting their normal life.
Since the outbreak of coronavirus in Hajin, Ishfaq has hadnot enough sleep. There have been times when he had no time to go home and hadto take a nap in his car, he said.
Dar believes people need to have self discipline and followpersonal quarantine concept to avoid spread of the virus.
It is not only people who were giving tough time to revenueofficials, but they feel they were been let down by higher authorities also.
Despite being at the forefront in the battle they were notequipped to face the deadly virus.
“We are the first people who enter the house of a COVID19patient to map their houses. We haven’t so far been provided with PPEs.Performing our duties without having a proper gear makes us more vulnerable incontracting the deadly virus. Despite requesting several times to theauthorities concerned nothing has been done,” said Waseem Ahmad Parray, anotherrevenue official.
Parray said the authorities direct the revenue officials toidentify and quarantine those coming from outside without thinking about theirsafety.
“I’m sure they understand that someone among these peoplecould be positive for the infection, yet they put us forward without providingus with the gear,” said Parray.
“We also have to track down suspects who had come in contactwith the COVID19 patients. This further enhances our risk of contracting thevirus. Not lacing people who are helping to deal with the problem would onlyworsen the situation instead of improving it,” Parray said.
Mudasir Ahmad, another revenue official said, “We have tocollect all details in the area and forward it to the district administrationon the daily basis. We collect details like how many positive cases arerecorded in respective areas in a single day. We also have to send details ofFIRs registered in the area against people violating laws and other details,”said Waseem Parray working, a Patwari in Hajin.
“Amid lockdown where one prefers to stay indoors we are outin the field to sensitize people about the pandemic and trying to help theadministration in tracing the COVID19 suspects,” said Fayaz Ahmad anotherPatwari.