Telangana Municipal Polls: SEC to Issue New SOPs

The Telangana High Court on Tuesday issued directions to the State government to be followed to control the spread of coronavirus.
According to a Division Bench consisting of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy dealing with a batch of petitions filed on the Covid-19 crisis, stated that many aspects were not discussed in the government's latest report.
The Chief Justice stated that the municipal elections in five districts and two corporations are going to be held soon and there is a high risk of increase in the number of coronavirus cases and directed that the State Election Commission (SEC) be impleaded to the current petitions.

The SEC should  issue Special Operating Procedures (SOPs) that must be followed during the election on April 30 as well as during the counting of votes, it said in its directions.
The court said that the details of the same should be included in an affidavit filed by the SEC at the next hearing.
The status report filed by the Secretary, Department of Public Health, Telangana, had details for the period between April 1 and April 21 that provides information on testing throughout the state.

The court added that the, "The capability of the state to conduct 30,000 RT-PCR tests daily should lead to a better ratio of RT-PCR tests against lesser efficacious rapid antigen tests."

The High Court had already issued orders to the State government to publish the actual numbers related to COVID-19. The panel observed that the State is still repeating the same and is hiding the COVID-19 related figures.

Since COVID patients are being advised to combat the disease by quarantining themselves at home, the Bench directed the State government to reintroduce the HITAM app, which was previously introduced by the Telangana government to facilitate online consultations with medical professionals throughout home quarantine.

The Advocate General was asked to provide information on the measures that would be taken after the night curfew restrictions end. The Chief Justice said that the State government will have to decide whether to have a complete lockdown or partial lockdown. The panel said that many people have been suffering due to the unavailability of funeral vehicles. The Bench asked the government authorities to come up with the details of the availability of crematoriums and burial grounds in districts that have a high death rate in their next status report.