The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has once again revised the protocol to seal buildings where one or more residents are detected with Covid-19. As per the amended protocol, issued Wednesday, the civic body will now seal a building completely only if more than three positive cases were reported.

“If three or more Covid-19 cases are reported from a building, then the civic body will seal a building completely. If fewer than three cases are reported, then civic officials will only seal a particular floor of the building and no restriction will be imposed on the movement of other residents,” a senior official from R South ward said.

The move comes in the backdrop of complaints from citizens who had taken exception to the BMC’s decision, issued last week, to seal an entire building located in the western suburbs and restrict the movement of its residents for 14 days after a single Covid-19 case was detected.

According to civic officials, soon after BMC had issued the guidelines to seal buildings completely if single Covid-19 case was reported, several residents and politicians had complained that they were facing problems to go to work or buy groceries. Local political leaders had also approached the Additional Municipal Commissioner, Suresh Kakani, to apprise him of the problems that people were facing.

Shiv Sena leader and former corporator from Dahisar, Abhishek Ghosalkar, said, “Residents will face a lot of problems if an entire building is sealed if one infection case was reported. As the state government has relaxed the lockdown, many offices and businesses have resumed. If an entire building is sealed then nobody can go out, which will, in turn, affect their work/businesses.” Ghosalkar had also raised the issue with senior civic officials.

The civic body had revised its guidelines on sealing buildings following a spurt in Covid-19 cases in Kandivali, Borivali and Dahisar areas. As per the BMC’s wardwise data, Covid-19 growth rate in the three areas is between 1.1 per cent and 1.7 per cent, which is higher than Mumbai’s daily average of 1.02 per cent. The virus doubling rate for these areas is also less than the city’s average of 69 days.

There are 526 sealed buildings in Kandivali, 673 in Borivali and 213 in Dahisar. These sealed buildings together have reported more than 2,600 cases, as per civic data.

The amended guidelines, officials said, will be implemented in R South (Kandivali), R Central (Borivali) and R North (Dahisar) wards from Wednesday.

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