NITI Aayog Office Building Sealed Off For 48 Hours After Official Tested Positive For Covid 19

NITI Aayog shuts down temporarily

Tuesday, 28th April 2020

The coronavirus scare continues in the state capital as the government think tank NITI Aayog building came under a 48-hour total shut down today. A senior level officer working here in the directors’ cadre tested positive for Covid-19, which led to the two-day sealing of the premise.

NITI Aayog adviser Alok Kumar told the press that the officer received his test results at nine o’clock this morning, post which he immediately notified the respective authorities. The ministry of health has also been intimated and all the prescribed procedures and protocols as per the ministry of health guidelines are being adhered to, he explained.

They also elaborated that contacts of the afflicted person have all been informed to go into self-quarantine with immediate effect. The building too is undergoing a thorough process of sanitization and disinfection.

A similar case was reported a few days back in the Civil Aviation Ministry headquarters at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan in New Delhi’s Jor Bagh. It had to be closed after one of its employees reported to have tested positive. He had attended office on April 15 and tested positive on April 21. He was the first staff in the central ministry to who has contracted the infection. The office reopened after two days. Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Puri also mentioned about the incident in his tweet after the office reopened.

NITI Aayog happens to be the second government building that got sealed off after a week of the aviation ministry case.

The highly contagious illness spread by the coronavirus has touched record numbers. Fresh cases in a single day hit the roof with 1,543 positive cases having been reported in the last 24-hours. The highest single day death toll also swelled to 62 taking the total deceased numbers to 934 and total affected Covid-19 cases to 29,435.

More than 70 per cent of the positive cases in India have been reported from a handful of states including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan.

Source: NDTV