The Ministry of Interior has taken a number of steps including sealing of western border and the Wagha border, and compilation of international passengers' data to deal with the outbreak of the COVID-19 in coordination with the federal and provincial agencies.
According to the details, the Ministry of Interior's initiatives included complete sealing of the western border of Pakistan w.e.f. 16th March, 2020 for an initial period of 14 days as decided in the National Security Committee (NSC) meeting on March 13, 2020, and extension for another period of 14 days.
At the same time, the sealing of Wagha border w.e.f. March 19, 2020 has been done for an initial period of 14 days.
Sources said that special initiative had been taken by the Interior Minister and secretary Interior regarding sensitization for the closure of Excise and Taxation offices, public dealing at property offices, beauty parlours and saloons in the ICT, after which the Cabinet Division revised the office timings, and made important decisions with respect to the Federal Secretariat.
The following special strategy was devised for all the ministries and the divisions, after the minister for interior took a special initiative to brief the prime minister:- identification of essential staff for important tasks, employees over 50 years of age allowed to work from home, employees with illness (flu, fever, etc) or facing health challenges allowed to work from home, female staff (with children) allowed to work from home, and closure of all public service delivery offices for public dealing.
Though this initiative has not made headlines, but has so far been one of the major initiatives that have helped curb the spread of the COVID-19 in the official corridors of Islamabad.
Since, the outbreak, an effective liaison has been made by the Ministry of Interior with all the Home Departments.
Consequently, all Home Departments including that of four provinces, territories of the AJ&K, the GB, and the ICT requested for deployment of army under Article 245 of the Constitution and Section 131A of Criminal Procedure Code, 1898, which were placed before the cabinet/federal government for approval in this meeting scheduled on 24th March 2020.
The Ministry of Interior has been coordinating with all the provinces 24/7 (day and night) before the outbreak in Pakistan, to help gather the data of people traveling to Pakistan from the countries where the COVID-19 is widespread, and the data was shared with the concerned authorities as and when required on short notices.
The Ministry of Interior is extending full cooperation ?24/7? across the country on all the important issues and will continue to do so to address the challenges the country is facing.