Jammu: An evidence-based system to check incidences of fudging or manipulation of vaccination certificates has been put in place at Lakhanpur- the gateway to J&K.
Besides, around forty teams of the health department (for testing purposes) are working round the clock to take on challenges posed by the Omicron-led third wave of COVID pandemic.
“So far, we have not come across any such case during our random verification where a double-vaccination certificate has been fudged or manipulated. Nevertheless, we’re well prepared to tackle any situation. We’ll respond as per the situation instead of pressing panic-button without any evidence,” Deputy Commissioner Kathua Rahul Yadav sums up the scenario at Lakhanpur, while speaking to Greater Kashmir.
“At Lakhanpur, we’ve deployed around 40 teams of health department employees for testing which work round the clock. Each team comprises three members. These teams work in shifts, like fourteen teams work in the morning; fourteen teams work in the evening shift and eight teams generally are there during night hours. This number gets changed as per situation and (incoming) passenger flow. If there is more rush in the morning, it will warrant deployment of more teams so number is increased to 16 or more as per requirement,” he points out while explaining about arrangements in place to contain the spread of virus.
According to him, in fact, mornings are generally peak hours for the staff with greater rush of passengers. During nights, flow is quite lean. As a general trend, the maximum buses from Delhi arrive at Lakhanpur border during morning hours at around 6.00 am or so.
“Hence, our morning slots are the most hectic ones with the maximum passenger flow from Delhi or Punjab as well as that of local commuters. Employees of neighbouring states who work in Jammu, they too reach Lakhanpur in the morning according to their office timings i.e., 10.00 am or so,” he explains.
Further elaborating on this account, Yadav informs, “Besides these forty teams, we have pooled in employees drawn from other departments including Education, State Taxes for additional deployment. These employees form separate teams which are engaged in the jobs related to management or supporting staff viz., ICMR-form filling; data entry (for RT-PCR forms of ICMR) etc., They also perform the task of checking teams to ensure that no person (passenger) escapes testing while health teams’ job remains restricted to sampling and submitting test reports.”
DOES WEEKEND LOCKDOWN MAKE ANY IMPACT ON PASSENGER INFLOW?
Deputy Commissioner Kathua replies in negative to this question.
Latest trends suggest that during weekends, the passenger rush has registered a decline. “However, one should not mistake that this decline has anything to do with our weekend lockdown restrictions introduced last week across J&K. Our weekend lockdown never impacts passenger flow here at Lakhanpur border. Impact is due to lockdown or restrictions put in place in Delhi. The simple fact is weekend lockdown at originating states only impacts passenger or tourist inflow at the gateway of J&K which draws incoming passengers mainly from Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh or other parts of Northern India. For example if there’s a lockdown in Delhi, this will result in straight drop of 2000-3000 passengers at Lakhanpur without even a single restriction put in place in J&K,” he states.
According to him, on an average, passenger inflow, comprising both tourists as well as local commuters, at Lakhanpur is 20,000 or so.
“On Sunday, 18,399 arrivals were recorded; this figure was lesser than the normal inflow. But it was because of restrictions in Delhi. This figure varies every day yet our general figure during normal days (in the present circumstances lies between 25,000 and 30,000. However, during our peak tourist season, this number spiralled up to 48,000 ahead of the beginning of Christmas festivities. During summer or during Navratras also, the number easily jumps off the 40,000 mark,” he points out.
IS STAF-CRUNCH HINDERING MANAGEMENT OF COVID?
Is the administration confronting any staff crunch to manage passenger rush at the Gateway of J&K, which at times even leads to ugly incidents of stray nature as was witnessed in the last week of December?
On the intervening night of December 24 and 25, an unruly crowd, enraged over “inordinate delay in getting RT-PCR reports” had vandalised COVID testing counters and also manhandled staff deputed at Lakhanpur.
Responding to the question with reference to this particular incident, DC Kathua clarifies, “No. Let me be very clear – that particular incident had not happened because of staff crunch. It happened because of disruption in rail traffic and the number of incoming passengers had crossed 48,000. This number becomes unmanageable for us too.”
“Coming back to the staff crunch issue, yes, that’s a problem of general nature. It will remain so when we’ve to pool in our employees from one district i.e., Kathua only. If we remove medical staff, doctors or other employees from one place and shift to another place, there will be hue and cry over the shifting…so I suppose that problem is confronted by all of us. But we’ve no option but to manage within our resources only. On that account, there cannot be a question of “manageable or not manageable.” That front, we’ve to manage anyhow and we’ve to live with that as long as COVID is there, there’s no other way out. We’ve to shift some staff at our disposal to attend to COVID, vaccination duties also and then the other side will be lopsided, left with less staff or crunch, but that is the situation in every district, across J&K rather across India in the times of pandemic,” Yadav adds.
Regarding questions pertaining to health facilities in the district to deal with COVID pandemic, he comes out with a response which gives confidence to tackle any situation.
“If one talks in terms of healthcare facilities to deal with emerging situations, see, compared to the first wave, we had better facilities during the second wave. Now when compared to the second wave, we are better equipped this time and we’re further improving. As regards shortage of doctors in the government sector, the trend is uniform throughout India. Rather J&K figures among the states/UTs with better doctor-patient ratio. Yes in every district, you find certain critical posts which are not filled-up. During recent recruitment by the National Health Mission (NHM), the total number of seats could not be filled up as there were not enough applications received from doctors. Like every district, we too had sent our vacancy-position to NHM,” he explains.
“During the second wave, we got some emergency posts for MBBS doctors under NHM as a part of COVID emergency response. But we’ve not received even a single application. So out of eight posts, two appeared for interviews, but even they did not join,” Yadav informs.
TESTING AT LAKHANPUR A CHALLENGING JOB
As far as testing is concerned, he points out that the administration is not conducting all 20000 tests.
“We’re roughly doing 4000-5000 testing. Right now, what we’re doing is – any person, who is not fully vaccinated; not having a double vaccination certificate, we’re testing him. Besides, any person, who is travelling in public transport, has to undergo testing. For these two categories, there’s compulsory testing. See, among the incoming passengers, there are many daily travellers who come to Samba, Jammu and Kathua for job purposes. It does not make sense to make them undergo daily testing,” he informs.
IS THERE ANY SYSTEM IN PLACE TO CHECK FUDGING OF DOUBLE VACCINATION CERTIFICATES?
With regard to a related question, he stated that the doctors deployed there would check certificates of each and every incoming passenger. “However, since it is not possible to cross-check or verify every certificate, we get them verified randomly. Because they can be checked through the Cowin app and for that you need username and password and the same thing is required for data entry as well. So it cannot be available to everyone. It is provided to a couple of employees deployed there and they do random (cross-)checking or verification. So far, we have not come across any such case of manipulated or fudged vaccination certificates during verification,” he answers.
IS THE SYSTEM IN PLACE COMPLAINT-BASED?
“No, our present system in place is evidence-based. Out of 20,000, we’re testing 5000 persons and checking double-vaccination certificates for the rest of the lot i.e., 15,000. Out of those 15,000, we go for random verification of certificates of 100 persons per day. As long as we get all hundred certificates genuine, we’re not going to check (verify) all 15,000 certificates. As and when we start getting any one or two manipulated cases out of the verified lot, alarm bells will ring. But so far the system is serving the purpose. We’ll take steps as per the situation,” Yadav explains.