The North Delhi Municipal Corporation on Wednesday carried out a sanitisation and disinfection drive in the Sangam Park area from where Delhi Police had earlier evacuated and put in quarantine eight Kyrgyzstan nationals suspected to have attended a Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Nizamuddin, which has become a hotspot of the coronavirus disease.
Sangam Park, located at Ashok Vihar in north Delhi, has been sanitised and the operations will continue in other areas nearby areas, municipal officials said.
Nearly 8,000 litres of disinfectant (a diluted solution of sodium hypochlorite) was used in the sanitation drive, the officials said, requesting anonymity.
The Kyrgyz nationals, who had been living in a rented house in Bharat Nagar near Sangam Park since early March, were moved to a quarantine facility by Delhi Police on Tuesday. The headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat in Nizamuddin West has emerged as the biggest Covid-19 hot spot, with at least 53 confirmed cases, and more than 500 showing symptoms of the disease.
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More than 2,200 people who attended the congregation have been placed in quarantine.
"A team of around 20 officials and staff members of the health department of the north corporation were entrusted with the task of sanitising the area. Nearly 8,000 litres of disinfectant was sprayed in localities such as Bharat Nagar and Sangam Park. We have sanitised over 4 square kilometre area in the region. The drive will continue in other nearby areas on Thursday," a senior official of North Delhi Municipal Corporation's health department said.
He said while a big tanker machine was used to sanitise the main roads in Bharat Nagar and Sangam Park, four field workers carrying diluted solution of sodium hypochlorite (a disinfectant) on shoulder-mounted knapsack pumps, sanitised houses located in slum areas as well as plotted colonies of the middle class neighbourhood.
"Other than sanitising the area, the residents living near the house from where the foreign nationals were evacuated were also advised to observe strict quarantine protocols and not to come out of their houses and interact with anyone," the official said.
The civic authorities, however, said area-specific quarantine measures will be taken up only after they receive directions from the district administration.
Ira Singhal, north corporation's deputy commissioner (Keshavpuram), under whose jurisdiction the area falls, said, "We are yet to get any specific instructions (for quarantine and sanitisation) from the district magistrate's office regarding Sangam Park or Ashok Vihar area. But if we do, they will be followed."
She said that municipality sprinklers, tankers with sodium hypochlorite solution, made rounds of every main road and sprayed the disinfectant there. Garbage is being collected from quarantined households separately and sent for incineration.
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