Punjab: Are teaching, non-teaching staff of edu institutes corona-proof, asks Bir Devinder

By: Express News Service | Patiala | Published: March 17, 2020 4:55:17 am “Despicable incongruity and favoritism while issuing preventive orders under the Act, in a given situation, must be treated with disdainful contempt and the intentional mischief and the deliberate error in the government order must be rectified forthwith,” Devinder said.Former Deputy Speaker of Punjab Assembly and senior vice president of SAD (Taksali), Bir Devinder Singh, has demanded that the Punjab government amend its “peculiar order” for closure of all educational institutions in the state which directs teaching and non-teaching staff to be present on duty. “One can understand the logic behind the closer of all the educational institutions as precautionary measures. I wonder how the government has assumed that the entire teaching fraternity and the members of non-teaching staff are ‘corona-proof’ and consequently not vulnerable to catch the deadly virus,” he asked. In a statement issued here this evening, Bir Devinder said that it was “idiocy” on the part of the government to presuppose that the teaching fraternity and the non-teaching staff neither cough nor sneeze and also strictly immune to catch cold hence they neither can transmit nor receive the virus by any mean or from any source. “In the light of this logic, I would thus appeal the authorities in the government to make course correction immediately so that things look convincingly correct and allow the teaching and non-teaching staff to stay home nevertheless if there is some pressing emergency they could always called for duty in the larger public interest,” he said. Bir Devinder said that it was again a strange paradox that the state government has closed all the Cinema Halls, Gyms, Swimming Pools and also banned the holding of sports events, conferences, cultural events, fairs and exhibitions in Punjab, from the midnight of March 14, under the Epidemic Disease Act, 1897, but the explicit order is silent on the gatherings and uncontrolled footfall in the marriage palaces in the state. “Just because some of these palaces are owned by Health Minister, Balbir Singh Sidhu and the Advisor of the Chief Minister Bhartinder Singh Chahal and other influential people the government has not passed any guest control order to restrict the footfall in marriage palaces. This kind of despicable incongruity and favoritism while issuing preventive orders under the Act, in a given situation, must be treated with disdainful contempt and the intentional mischief and the deliberate error in the government order must be rectified forthwith,” he said. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines