Part-I:
Modi 2.0 Government’s Swift Actions to Contain & Combat Covid-19
“Some will say
this discussion of the Avian Flu is an overreaction. Some may say, “Did we cry wolf?” The reality is if the H5N1 virus does not
trigger pandemic flu, there will be another virus that will” is what the
United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt
predicted in November 2005. The United
States had rightly acknowledged that such a pandemic will test the critical
infrastructure of both the United States and the world. Several policies and
protocols were developed in the United States to ensure the resilience of
critical infrastructure in the face of a pandemic. However, notwithstanding all such plans,
protocols and the preparations made nearly for two decades, when the Covid-19
tested the preparedness of United States’ critical infrastructure, it showed
chinks in its armory and displayed dysfunctional abnormalities of a virtually
collapsing health care critical infrastructure in the country. As on June 2, 2020, given its population of
330.85 millions, the United States had contracted 1,865,459
Covid-19 cases and have had a casualty of 1,07,314, while India with a much
more staggering population of 1.30 billions for the same period had only 2
lakhs Covid-19 cases and a casualty of 5,598.
The striking contrast in which India had so far witnessed a very low
casualty figure suggests either of the two things, viz. the no-nonsense ingenuity with which the Modi Government had
handled the pandemic or the natural immunity of Indians to outwit the virus. Let us briefly chronicle what the Modi 2.0
Government did in containing and combating the Covid-19 in our country.
Initial
Global Responses to Covid-19:
The outbreak of the Covid-19 from the Wuhan district
of China was initially never taken seriously by any country in the globe during
the initial days of January 2020 given the abject lack of any meaningful
information from China on the contagious nature of the disease pushing the
world community into complacency. China informed the World Health Organisation (“WHO”)
of the outbreak on January 3, 2020. However,
the fact remains that China did not fully share the genome of the Covid-19
virus, nor did it alert the world on the human to human transmissions. There
were initial gaffes in the way WHO approached and handled the issue. Initially, on January 5 & 14, 2020, WHO
maintained that there was no evidence of human to human transmission of
Covid-19 or health care workers being affected in China, despite Taiwan
alerting WHO by its email dated December 31, 2019 that there were news of such
happenings in China. WHO delayed the
declaration of a global pandemic and declared it to be so only on January 30,
2020 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, by which time the
Covid-19 virus had spread from China to other countries. After undertaking a
visit to China in February 2020, WHO praised the disease containment and
prevention measures taken by China(1).
Health
& Travel Advisories and Initial Containment in India:
Although there was very little public information
available on the nature of Covid-19 and mode of its transmission, the Modi
Government did not shy away from initiating a slew of measures to prepare the
country against its onslaught. The
Ministry of Finance, Government of India recognized the spread of Covid-19 as a
force majeure condition and issued a notification on February 19, 2020 in
relation the procurement of goods by the Government of India. On March 5, 2020, the Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare of the Government of India (“MHFW”) issued an advisory to the
State Governments to reduce mass gatherings with a view to prevent the spread
of Covid-19. On March 11, 2020, the High
Level Group of Ministers decided to implement visa restrictions and put in
place travel advisories against visiting certain countries and in the wake of
the same, on the same date, the Bureau of Immigration under the Ministry of
Home Affairs (“MHA”) issued visa restrictions to foreigners visiting India and
introduced 14 days quarantine of passengers arriving from or having visited
countries of China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, France, Spain and Germany and on
the same day, MHFW had also issued travel advisory against Indians visiting
such countries. Again on March 16, the MHFW
issued the advisory on social distancing to prevent spreading of Covid-19 and
thereafter on March 19, MHFW banned the arrival of any scheduled international
flights to India. The Indian Railways
initially discontinued its train services on March 22, 2020 which was from time
to time extended further. In the
meanwhile, on March 13, 16 and 20 of 2020, the MHFW had issued various
guidelines and directives to the Chief Secretaries of the States and Union
Territories to implement social distancing and quarantine advisories to contain
the spread of Covid-19.
In the meanwhile, several state governments also
announced their own covid-19 infection prevention and control regulations under
the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the Public Health Act of the concerned
states like the one introduced by Tamil Nadu on March 15, 2020. Pursuant thereto, the Government of Tamil
Nadu announced its own lockdown on March 23, 2020 under the Epidemic Diseases
Act, 1897. Following a televised address
to the nation by Modi, the country went in for a ‘Janata Curfew’ between 7 am
to 9 pm on March 22, 2020. On March 24,
the MHA invoked the provisions of the Disaster Management Act directing all
authorities in the Central Government, State and Union Territories Governments
to strictly implement a host of Covid-19 prevention and control measures,
including the first lockdown in the country, which was followed by another
directive to the States and Union Territories issued on April 2, to strictly
implement the penal provisions under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Indian
Penal Code against anyone found violating the lockdown orders. This phase marked the Lockdown 1.0. Soon, the Lockdown 2.0, 3.0. 4.0 and lastly
the Lockdown 5.0 versions followed with several relaxations in activities.
Not only the Modi Government used the lockdowns to
prevent and contain the spread of the Covid-19, but, effectively utilized the
opportunity to spruce up and augment the health care infrastructure in the
country. Front line Covid-19 warriors
were mobilized and sensitized from the doctors, nurses and other health care
community, besides, the police, municipal and sanitation workers. Hospitals and testing facilities and kits
were augmented and revamped. The country
clamped down on the export of essential Covid-19 drugs, PPE, ventilators,
gloves and masks so as to build up adequate buffer stock when India had to face
the surge of Covid-19 cases. It also took
steps to protect the frontline covid-19 warriors against social discrimination
and attacks. Hoarding and profiteering
in the sale of masks, sanitizers and other drugs related to Covid-19 was also
significantly curbed by invoking the Essential Commodities Act. India also supplied essential medicines to
125 countries as a gesture of solidarity.
Given the size of its population, the country had to
unleash quick and successive steps to put in place surveillance at points of
entry into the country, evacuation of Indian nationals stranded overseas,
massive community surveillance through robust disease surveillance network and
contract tracing, strengthening of health care sector, capacity building of
over two million frontline human resources, risk communication and community
involvement, requisitioning public and private spaces for quarantine
facilities, ramping up testing facility and providing essential supplies.
We have never in the past witnessed a massive seamless
coordination and almost daily release of advisories, actions, relaxations,
concessions and relief measures by various ministries, departments of the
Central Government and the regulators, courts and tribunals in our country,
some of which salient aspects will be appropriately addressed in the successive
posts. However, to set the tone, we will
commence with understanding how the Modi Government utilized the statutory
powers to weave and enforce a web of Covid-19 prevention and control
regulations in a more federal manner.
Mode
of Exercise of Statutory Powers by Modi:
The initial advisories issued by the Modi Government
were premised on the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the
Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Criminal Procedure Code exhorting the States to
implement the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act to prevent the emergence
of an epidemic from Covid-19(2). Subsequently, the Central Government called
upon the States & Union Territories to invoke and implement the powers
vested on to them under the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, the
Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Criminal
Procedure Code, to give effect to the advisories of the Central Government to
combat Covid-19(3). Up to this stage, the Modi Government had
requested the States & Union Territories to implement the provisions of the
above legislations to handle the situation on the ground. In reality, on a national scale, there were
several disparities and uneven implementation of the advisories leading to
non-uniform compliance levels. This
called for a centre-driven and controlled statutory regime to combat Covid-19.
It was at this juncture that pursuant to the decisions
taken at the High Level Group of Central Ministers meeting held on March 24,
2020, the MHA invoked the powers vested under the Disaster Management Act, 2005
to strictly direct the ministries/departments under the Central Government and
the States/Union Territories governments to strictly implement the lockdown
guidelines issued by it(4). All subsequent lockdown orders have also been
issued by the Central Government under the provisions of the Disaster
Management Act. This is because the
powers of the Central Government and the National Disaster Management Authority
under the Disaster Management Act are very extensive and has overriding effect
on other laws. The directives issued by
the Central Government under this Act will bind all authorities in the Union
Government, the State & Union Territories and the State Disaster Management
Authorities. This is why the Modi
Government had effectively exercised the powers under this Act to contain the
Covid-19 pandemic in our country.
End
Notes:
(1) Report
of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease, 2019 [Covid-19] dated
16-24 February 2020.
(2) Letter
No.DO.Z 28015/19/2020-EMR dated March 13, 2020 issued by the Secretary,
Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India to the Chief
Secretaries of States and Union Territories.
(3) Letter
No.DO.Z 28015/01/2020-EMR(Pt) dated March 20, 2020 issued by the Secretary,
Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India to the Chief
Secretaries of States and Union Territories.
(4) Order
No.40-3/2020-DM-I(A) dated March 24, 2020 issued by the Home Secretary, MHA.
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