There’s good news in store for the people of Velim as well as the health authorities.
After a high-level meeting chaired by the South Goa District Collector Ajit Roy on Sunday, the district administration has decided to make Covid testing mandatory for all the migrant workers, who descend on the Cutbona fishing jetty to work on the fishing vessels.
The meeting is also believed to have discussed other issues, including medical kits containing oximeters, medicines such as paracetamol etc when the fishing vessels venture out in the sea for fishing.
The Collector is now expected to issue a formal order to make Covid certificates mandatory for the migrant workers after the Director of Fisheries withdrew the letter written to the fisheries officers to dispense with the Covid certificates for the migrant workers.
Besides the Collector, the meeting was attended by Additional District Collector Surendra Naik, Balli PHC health officer Dr Tulsimamata Kakodkar, Salcete mamlatdar Prataprao Gaonkar and police officials.
The meeting was held against the backdrop of the meeting the district authorities had with the boat owners.
The meeting was primarily called after Dr Kakodkar had written a letter to the Collector with a plea to make Covid certificates mandatory for the migrant crew descending on the Cutbona fishing jetty.
The health officer had dashed off a letter to the Collector after the Director of Fisheries Dr Shamila Monteiro sent letters to the fisheries officers last week stating that negative certificates are not mandatory for the crew members while entering fishing jetties and also while venturing into the sea.
The Fisheries Director had apparently issued the letter to the officers after the government opened the borders, airports and railway stations for people to enter the state without Covid testing.
The Balli PHC health officer Dr Kakodkar, however, in her letter to the Collector had demanded that testing of all labourers entering the Cutbona jetty should be made compulsory along with other measures such as social distancing and wearing of masks.
The health officer had pointed out in the letter that the health workers would be preoccupied with the task of screening of the migrant labourers coming in thousands to the fishing jetty for vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue, etc in order to prevent its outbreak and spread to the locals.
Besides the Balli PHC, local residents of Velim, including the Velim Civic and Consumer Forum and Goacan, had demanded compulsory testing of the migrant labourers descending on the jetty for Covid.
