07 Jul 2020  |   04:04am IST

Hear the cry of those in containment zones

With another micro-containment zone declared in Goa, the administration needs to make some changes in the system after taking a few lessons from the other zones so as to manage the new ones better.
Hear the cry  of those in containment zones

It is over a month since Mangor Hill became the State’s first containment zone, and according to the latest news, there is no probability that this area will open up anytime soon. At a high-level meeting on Monday, it was decided that restirctions at Mangor Hill will remain in place for another two weeks at least, as there are still cases being reported from the area. The de-sealing of a containment zone depends on no positive cases reported for a period of 28 days.

While Mangor Hill still remains locked up, there have been a number of protests within the containment zone of people who are unhappy with the restrictions and the quality of supplies that are being provided to them while they remain at home. Earlier the residents of the area had even thrown out sacks of the supplies in protest. Last week the residents gathered near the barricades that denote the start of the containment zone to protest the long lockdown and the supplies. But, the Mangor Hill residents are not the only ones who are complaining. Residents of Ward 7 of Zuarinagar too have begun to protest citing irregular essential supplies, lack of money in the ATMs, no mass COVID testing, no sufficient medicines in pharmacies. 

Besides this, residents of Moti Dongor in Margao that was declared a micro-containment zone much later than Mangor Hill are facing similar issues, and residents of that area, as reported by Herald, have begun to sneak out through other walking paths and going shopping and even travelling by public transport. Herald reporters did a first-hand ground report on this, tracking the paths used by those who sneaked out of the area. The police admit that it is ‘humanly not possible to put a wall there’ and that they are relying on pickets and patrolling to check on movement within and outside the containment zone, but following the Herald report there were measures taken to close these paths.

While Moti Dongor is an example of people leaving the area, there have been reports of people sneaking out of other containment zones too. The temptation of the authorities may be to take action against these people for breaking the containment zone rules, which of course may have to be taken, but there is also the other aspect to be considered of the reason why the people are doing so – which is the poor quality of the essentials that are being supplied and the need for the daily wage earners to keep their jobs. If the people were to get some quality of supplies, then they perhaps would have stayed within the zones, without attempting to break through the barriers.

The government has now decided to permit groceries and shops selling vegetables to open in the Mangor Hill containment zone, so as to mitigate the sufferings of the residents of the area. The government is also going to allow those who test negative to leave that containment zone, but will not allow them to return, which means that they will have to make living arrangement elsewhere for the time that the area remains under restrictions. Perhaps the government should also consider some similar arrangements in the other containment areas, whereby shops can remain open so that the people are not put to too much of an inconvenience during the time they are not allowed to exit the zone. For this, the supply lines to the shops will also have to be kept open, as stocks could get exhausted easily. The people in the containment zones are suffering, this is the least that can be done to mitigate their problems.


IDhar UDHAR

Idhar Udhar