Chennai: Amid significant spurt in cases in Chennai city, the Tamilnadu government today nominated five Ministers to oversee the COVID-19 pandemic coordination and relief works in the 15 zones of the Greater Chennai Corportion.
The city has been clocking 1,000-plus positive cases during the last couple of days, taking the State Capital’s COVID-19 tally to 18,693 of the total 26,256 cases in the State, besides 220 deaths.
The pandemic coordination and relief works were being carried out by the Greater Chennai Corporation along with field support teams, in the 15 zones of the Corporation.
As part of intensifying its efforts to control the virus spread, the government nominated Ministers Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar, Higher Education Minister K P Anbalagan, Food and Civil Supplies Minister R Kamaraj, Revenue and Disaster Management Minister R B Udhayakumar and Transport Minister K R Vijayabhaskar to ensure effective and strict containment zone management, focussed testing, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine management to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.
Jayakumar will be responsible for zones 3,4 and 5; Anbalagan will oversee activities in zones 13,14 and 15; R. Kamaraj in zones 8,9 and 10; Udhayakumar will be in charge of zones 1,2 and 6 and Vijayabhaskar will oversee zones 7, 11 and 12.
Of the total cases in the State, Chennai and three adjoining districts like Tiruvallur, Kanchipuram and Chengalpattu accounted for more than 75 per cent of the cases, while the COVID-19 spread has been brought under control in the rest of the districts, prompting Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami to significantly relax the lockdown restrictions.