Hakim asks KMC health officials to verify phone number, address of those undergoing Covid test
Kolkata: Firhad Hakim, Chairman of Board of Administrators of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has instructed officials of the civic body's Health department involved with free Covid testing facility to cross check and verify the address and phone numbers of the persons undergoing the test before jotting it down.
In a handful of cases it has been noticed that persons undergoing tests have furnished fake phone numbers and addresses which has posed difficulty on the part of health officers to keep track of that person if he tested positive.
"There are 2 to 3 per cent cases where we have found that persons undergoing Covid tests have provided wrong phone number or address. But we cannot make address proof like Aadhaar card mandatory as we feel that nobody should be deprived of availing Covid testing facilities which is being offered by KMC free of cost. Officials involved in this work has been asked to take special care while noting down phone numbers and addresses of a person undergoing test and if necessary ask him/ her multiple times. We are hopeful that such false furnishing of contact number or address will further go down by thorough verification," said Hakim.
In some of the wards the ward co-ordinators have asked persons to furnish their identity proof in the form of Aadhaar card or voter card while undergoing Covid testing to avoid such hassle.
Monitoring the health condition of COVID affected people remaining in home quarantine is one the prime jobs on the part of KMC's Health department.
Bappaditya Dasgupta, coordinator of Ward 101 in Baishnabghata Patuli area said that more than 2,400 tests have been conducted by KMC in his ward and till date over 1200 persons have tested positive.
"We ask for an address proof while conducting Covid test and believe me there has not been a single case of fake address or phone number. However, in some cases when persons have conducted tests from private hospitals or diagonistic centres we have faced such issues while carrying out supervision or sanitisation," he added. Anindya Kishore Routh, outgoing Chairman of Borough III comprising areas like Maniktala, Phoolbagan, Beliaghata, Ultadanga that have witnessed a reasonable number of positive cases said that he has faced such problems of wrong address or phone number and had to use his own source network to detect the real address.
Ashim Basu, Coordinator of Ward 70 in Bhowanipore said that some people from adjacent wards who had undergone Covid test in his ward have furnished false address or phone number and he had to face difficulty in locating the proper address.
