Amidst reports of cluster transmission of the coronavirus, the increasing number of hotspots, and allegations of low testing rate, Punjab Special Chief Secretary K.B.S. Sidhu, the face of the state’s COVID-19 war, states that the situation is under control. In a candid interview with THE WEEK, Sidhu elaborates on how the state is fighting the COVID-19 battle on various fronts.
With reports of community transmission in various districts, fast transformation of clusters into hotspots, how would you asses the current COVID-19 situation in Punjab? Is it under control or worrisome?
With 277 total cases so far (26 new cases reported as of April 23), I would say that the situation in Punjab is under control. The rate at which new cases are being reported is modest; the daily number of new cases is decreasing. Even though two districts of Punjab—SAS Nagar, Mohali (62 cases) and Jalandhar (53)—are in the “red zone” at the national level, 100 per cent cases have been traced and tracked or are confined to compact clusters. Moreover, an increasing number of patients have recovered and are being discharged. There is no room for complacency as we head into the wheat procurement season and gradual opening up of the industry, but it’s definitely not a situation that should cause alarm.
Punjab was one of the states that was first to be put on alert owing to large number of NRIs coming in. Do you think being forewarned helped the state?
Forewarning definitely helped although many initially believed that the government was unnecessarily hounding the NRIs. The number of NRIs was originally estimated to be around 90,000. The data from New Delhi was not quite timely or complete. After sifting through the duplicates and accounting for those who had already gone back abroad, we were left with a number of approximately 56,000. There was an extensive problem that the addresses, as contained in the passports, were often old ones and many NRIs were not found to be residing there. Nevertheless, our field officers, led by the respective deputy commissioners, worked hard to track and home-quarantine almost all of them for a period 14 days. Not a single case has been found to have been linked directly and conclusively to an infected NRI.
What are the biggest challenges in the state’s war against COVID-19?
We, like all other states, are fighting this war with a number of constraints. However, most of these are not insurmountable. If I were to specify the single biggest adverse factor, it is the virtual non-availability of the Rapid Testing Kits (RTK), till very recently. In a scenario, where testing, testing and testing are our priorities, this really has proved to be a big dampener. We had placed an indent of 1 lakh kits with ICMR (to take care of 10 lakh tests, using multiple testing techniques). However, only a few thousand kits have been received. Our efforts to procure at our level have not been very successful since the supply of ICMR-brands is very limited in the country as well as abroad.
It may be too early to say, but we are getting some disturbing reports that the RTKs are also erring on the negative side. That is, they are showing a negative result, whereas the more reliable RT-PCR test is showing a positive result. The emphasis on RTKs is based on the premise that it is highly accurate and reliable, when they show a negative result. Comprehensive analysis has still to be carried out but in case RTKs turn out to be unreliable, when showing a negative result, our effort to contain COVID-19 may face a really serious challenge. I feel this is a nationally relevant factor and must be resolved as soon as possible.
What would you say are the biggest feats achieved while fighting this war?
Punjab’s biggest feat has been to enforce a curfew very effectively and, at the same time, we have been able to distribute dry-rations and cooked food to the people confined to their homes. We have got unprecedented cooperation from the general public as also the various NGOs.
On the tracing and tracking front, persons who attended the Tablighi Jamath initially posed a serious challenge. Over 600 persons of the Jamath were generally non-cooperative and it took a lot of effort of the field agencies to trace them. Not less than 16 persons from among them, or their immediate contacts, were found COVID-19-positive. These included four ladies, from Chhattisgarh and Aurangabad in Maharashtra, who were traced to two different districts of Punjab and found positive, even though they were not in the database originally received from Delhi.
Punjab has so far put forth one of the biggest brigades of corona warriors on the frontline. What is your take on their contribution or threats they face in the wake of the attack on cops in Patiala?
Officers and officials of the district administration, health and police departments have been at the forefront. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has been personally supervising the efforts of the entire state.
There has been more than one instance, where the next-of-kin have refused to cremate the dead body of a COVID-19 patient and it was left to tehsildars and junior officials of the revenue department to perform the last rites.
The basic job of the police was to initially enforce the curfew. Once that was done, the police expanded its out-reach activities in supplementing the district administration’s efforts to supply dry rations as well as cooked meals (langar) to the people.
The threats that they face include not only the risk of infection but also unprovoked murderous assaults like the one in Patiala, where the police showed tremendous restraint in not resorting to indiscriminate firing that could have led to loss of innocent lives.
However, there’s absolutely no dip in the motivation of our field officers and officials, who have literally been working round-the-clock since the lockdown.
Is the state mulling a third lockdown?
Personally, I don’t think so. We have already put in place a calibrated wheat marketing and procurement operation. Effective from April 21, we have instructed the deputy commissioners to allow limited industrial and construction activity in line with the Government of India guidelines subject, however, to all the health and safety measure and precautions.
Having said that, the top state leadership will consider the situation, nationally as well as locally, around 1st of May and take an informed decision at that juncture, after considering all the relevant factors.
What is Punjab’s current economic situation vis-a-vis the national scenario? Do you think the state is threatened with a financial emergency?
The state government’s finances are under stress because the three major streams of revenue—GST, Liquor Excise and Stamp Duty—have been reduced to a trickle. On the other hand, committed liabilities like employee salaries, pensions and serving of the state debt continue unabated as before. We are also pressing hard for the GoI to release Punjab’s share of GST arrears which have now mounted Rs 4,400 crore.
With gradual opening up taking place and a movement towards a more liberal scenario post-May 3, I personally do not think there’s any imminent threat of a financial emergency.
The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Punjab are going through their worst. What are the relief plans?
The MSMEs are the backbone of the state’s industrial sector. Their working capital is quite limited, even in the best of times. Still, most of them have managed to pay, at least in part, the salaries of their regular employees.
Many proposals to assist them in the payment of salaries of their employees have been received by the Punjab government, but given the current fiscal stress, the state’s capacity to assist would be severely limited, in the absence of reasonable relief package from the GoI.
What is the state of the agrarian economy of Punjab?
Fortunately, it has been a bumper wheat harvest. Against a production of over 18 million metric tonnes, we are excepting not less than 13.5 million tonnes of wheat in our “mandis”. About Rs 27,000 crore shall be pumped into the rural economy in the next month-and-a-half. Even after considering the debt-servicing by the significantly indebted Punjab farmer, this will energise the state’s rural economy. My estimate is that approximately Rs 3,000-4,000 crores would now go to the indigenous labour rather than to the labour of the outside states.
I also expect at least 1 lakh hectares of increased area under cotton cultivation (from the 4 lakh hectares in the previous harvest). This would be at the expense of the paddy crop, which is a high water-consuming crop. Economically, it shall help save valuable water for the state.
For the agrarian economy, it may well be the case that “sweet are uses of adversity”.
Special Chief Secretary K.B.S. Sidhu is an IAS officer (1984 batch) who is also the Financial Commissioner, Revenue, and the Department of Disaster Management, and the State Disaster Relief Fund is also under him.
