Amid Omicron scare, J-K's education dept staff to be deployed for COVID duties

Srinagar (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], December 29 (ANI): With the country reporting more than 650 cases of Omicron variant of COVID-19 so far, the staff members from the education department in Jammu and Kashmir will be redeployed to the COVID duties in all districts of the Union Territory.
Notably, the government had cancelled the existing order of the education department on COVID duties on December 10.
According to the order released by the UT administration on Tuesday, a detailed review meeting regarding the current COVID-19 situation was held in Jammu by the Chief Secretary (Chairman SEC) J-K with the ACS (Finance), Principal Secretary(Home) and other high officials of Jammu and Kashmir on December 18 and 24, wherein it was decided that there is a need to continue and further strengthen the existing COVID-19 containment measures in all districts in view of newly discovered variant B.1.1.529 (Omicron).
In this regard, COVID-19 control rooms have been set up by Divisional Commissioner Kashmir/Jammu and Deputy Commissioners (Chairperson DDMAs).
"The State Executive Committee (SEC), in the exercise of powers conferred upon it under section 24 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 hereby orders that deployment of additional staff for COVID -19 containment /mitigation efforts by concerned District Disaster Management Authorities shall continue in UT of J-K," read the order.
However, the staff on COVID duties will be deployed who are below the rank of Lecturer.
The guidelines stated in the government order said that not more than one staff will be deployed from a single school and for not more than three months. The deployment shall be of non-repetitive staff members. (ANI)