Coronavirus: People crowd around HP minister, at Shimla DC's office

Even as maintaining distance of at least one metre between individuals is being insisted upon to check the spread coronavirus, several instances of its violation have come to light in Himachal Pradesh. A number of stranded tourists from West Bengal were seen crowding when state forest and transport minister Govind Singh Thakur went to distribute rations to them in Kullu district on Friday, while over 400 people were on Saturday seen violating the norm as they queued up to apply for curfew passes in Shimla Deputy Commissioner Amit Kashyap's office complex.

When contacted, Thakur said that the tourists were stuck in a hotel near Manali in Kullu district. They "suddenly came out" and the required distance could not be maintained when he had gone to their hotel to provide them dry ration, the minister said. Claiming that most of the times efforts are made to keep the required distance, Thakur said he had also arranged help for six tourists from West Bengal stuck in Rampur of Shimla district.

On Saturday, over 400 people who wanted curfew passes were seen standing close to one another in Shimla DC Amit Kashyap's office. Several persons kept on coming and standing in queues without maintaining adequate distance, an employee said on the condition of anonymity. Kashyap did not respond to calls or messages on the incident.

As per World Health Organisation (WHO) and other health experts, distance of at least one metre must be maintained between individuals to check spread of the COVID-19 virus..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)