Mantralaya to work on alternate days: Chief Secretary

In view of the spike in the Covid-19 cases in Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra, the Chief Secretary Sanjay Kumar of Mantralaya issued an order to implement alternate-day work instead of two shifts.

The Chief Secretary asked department secretaries to implement alternate-day work plan at the state secretariat.

Kumar’s order states that in the wake of rising number of Covid cases in Mumbai and the state and in order to facilitate adherence to social distancing norms and to ensure that crowding is avoided.

The administrative headquarters of the Maharashtra government in south Mumbai, Mantralaya has over 5,000 employees, apart from the ministers and bureaucrats who also operate from here. Earlier, eight employees from the revenue department were detected Covid-positive while the reports of 14 others were awaited.

Maharashtra recorded this year’s highest one-day spike of 16,620 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, which pushed the overall caseload to 23,14,413. While 50 deaths pushed the toll to 52,861, the health department said.

Pune district in Maharashtra reported as many as 3,267 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, which pushed its overall tally to 4,37,868, a health official said.

With 845 new cases in the neighbouring industrial township of Pimpri Chinchwad, the total count there grew to 1,14,026.