Tura, June 1 – Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Monday toured three districts in the Garo Hills region to take stock of the Novel Coronavirus situation. During his visit to a quarantine centre at Baghmara, the district headquarters of South Garo Hills bordering Bangladesh, Sangma interacted with the inmates and also took part in an all faith prayer meeting.

“The ceremony was organized with bare minimum attendees to pray for the society as we fight COVID-19 together,” a district official said. “We have to adapt to the situation and learn to change ourselves and get back to doing things differently as we call it the new normal,” the Chief Minister said.

Underscoring that the safety of the people is of paramount concern, Sangma said efforts are on to ensure that economic activities were started, so that normalcy can prevail. “We need to be stable and not panic and be prepared for all kinds of possibilities and challenge to deal with the crisis,” the Chief Minister exhorted.

On restarting of economic activities along the international border with Bangladesh, Sangma said, “When the border is open and the economic activities starts, the administration should be prepared for any possibilities and take utmost measures to ensure safety of the people.”The Chief Minister also directed the administration to continue with their effort to sensitise the people to adapt to the situation.

“The elderly people, children and lactating mothers need to be taken care of and the day to day functioning of the hospital should also begin,” the Chief Minister added. Reiterating that government’s top priority to revamp the overall health infrastructure in the state, Sangma said, “Even before COVID-19, the state government had made a plan on how to reform and re-strengthen the entire health infrastructure and we are going to be investing a lot on ensuring that the infrastructures improve in the Primary Health Centres, Community Health Centres and Sub Health Centres.”

Expressing his appreciation for the “hard work” put in by the frontline workers, the Chief Minister said, “Meghalaya has been an example of a discipline society and this should continue in the weeks to come. I thank the members of the society for taking the responsibility and the initiative.”“Once this phase of difficulty that we are facing of stranded people coming in is over, the next challenge starts for us, which is that we have to live with COVID-19. It’s not going to go away, it is here to stay. And so how do we adapt and adjust so that our normal life can continue, yet we can protect ourselves from COVID-19,” he said

“That is the real challenge that is going to come before us and for that we will need the administration, the leadership and the society to work together to take our state and our people forward,” Sangma added. However, the Chief Minister said the key to managing COVID-19 in the state is for the people and the society to take up the responsibility upon themselves to fight the situation together.

At Tura, the district headquarters of West Garo Hills, Sangma handed over a quarantine completion certificate to a resident of fancy valley locality. The Chief Minister will visit various localities in Tura on Tuesday and will later visit Williamnagar in East Garo Hills.