Assam Governor Mukhi Urges Officials to Run BTC on Trident Policy of "Listen, Respond and Act"

Guwahati:

Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi, for the first time since assuming the administration of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), visited the administrative headquarter Kokrajhar today.

Mukhi interacted with the Administrator, Principal Secretary, Deputy Commissioners, IG, DIG, Superintendents of Police of the BTAD, Additional PCCF, Army, CRPF, and SSB and asked them to work for the welfare of the public.

The Governor asked the officers to run the BTC administration on the trident policy of listen, respond, and act and urged them to usher in "citizen friendly" governance in the region by listening to citizens and taking "responsive approach for citizen friendly governance." Mukhi further urged for "decisiveness and resoluteness in action."

Weighing in on the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, Mukhi said, "At present the global community is going through an extraordinary situation in view of the novel coronavirus pandemic and our country as well as our state are battling hard against Covid-19."

Mukhi told officials that that although the BTAD has been left largely untouched by the Covid-19, they cannot be "complacent" and have to work in tandem to keep the virus at bay. The Governor further called upon the officials to follow the health department's directives and make equipment such as ventilators, PPEs, masks, hand sanitizers available to stop the outbreak in its tracks.

Additionally, the Governor said that the agriculture and MSME sectors in the BTAD must be benefited from the Rs 20 lakh crore package announced by the Centre to bail out the economy ailing due to the Covid-19 crisis.

It is pertinent to mention here that Mukhi's visit to Kokrajhar has courted a significant amount of controversy. Bodo People's Front (BPF), the former ruling party, which claims that its term in the Council should have been extended as elections were deferred due to the crisis, claims that since Mukhi is above 65-years of age, he should not be visiting Kokrajhar in view of Covid-19 health hazards.

Significantly, the Government's advisory pertaining to the lockdown explicitly states that people above 65 should only step out for "essential activities". "Persons above 65 years of age, persons with comorbidities, pregnant women and children below the age of ten years shall stay at home except for essential and health purposes", the Government's advisory reads.