Collectors wanted curbs on people moving from Chennai’
TAMIL NADU‘Collectors wanted curbs on people moving from Chennai’
Mohamed Imranullah S.CHENNAI 25 JUNE 2020 00:18 ISTUPDATED: 25 JUNE 2020 00:31 IST
Views expressed at meeting with Chief Secretary on June 12
The State government on Wednesday told the Madras High Court that exactly on June 12, when it had informed the court that there was no plan to impose a complete lockdown in Chennai, many Collectors had urged Chief Secretary K Shanmugam to impose restrictions on movement of people from Chennai into their districts.
Justice R. Mahadevan was told that during a meeting convened by the Chief Secretary on June 12, many Collectors informed that the increase in COVID-19 patients in recent times is due to a large number of persons coming from Chennai who are testing positive. “Therefore, they insisted that more restrictions for such movements will give them elbow room to control disease spread,” Revenue and Disaster Management Secretary Atulya Misra told the court. The views of the Collectors, along with that of health experts, led to ongoing lockdown in Chennai and three of its adjoining districts from June 19 to 30.
Mr. Misra made the submissions in a counter affidavit filed in response to a writ petition filed by Apparels and Handloom Exporters Association, represented by senior counsel P.S. Raman, to grant exemption from the lockdown. Opposing the plea, the officer pointed out, though the number of COVID-19 positive cases in Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengelpet districts were only 17,334 as on May 31, the figure increased “abnormally” to 33,895 on June 12. Moreover, Chennai had recorded the highest number of cases which was around 67.39% of the total number of cases in Tamil Nadu.
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He also attributed the rise in figures in Chennai and adjoining districts to large urban population, location of houses in close proximity to each other and the average living space being small. “This is giving a greater stress on health infrastructure,” he said and added that even senior police officers in Greater Chennai were in favour of internal restrictions in the city.
On his part, Mr. Raman told the court that the government had granted exemption to Information Technology and Information Technology Enabled Services from the ongoing lockdown and wondered how could it refuse to give a similar exemption to garment exporters who face the threat of losing foreign orders to the tune of several crores of rupees.
After hearing him, Justice Mahadevan directed Additional Advocate General P.H. Arvindh Pandian to obtain instructions from the Secretary, on the point raised by the senior counsel, by Monday.
