DDCA Employee Tests Positive For COVID-19, Joint Secretary Orders Feroz Shah Kotla Shutdown

The Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) office at the Feroz Shah Kotla premises has been shut down after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19 and reported to work without a "negative test report". DDCA joint secretary Rajan Manchanda, the only active office-bearer in the absence of president and secretary (Vinod Tihara is under suspension), has given instructions to shut down the Kotla till further notice as multiple employees will now have to go for quarantine and contact tracing needs to be done.

"It has come to my notice that there has been a COVID-19 positive case in DDCA today. Please shut down the club with immediate effect till further orders and please ensure sanitisation of the entire club premises as soon as possible," Manchanda wrote in his e-mail instructing administration manager Neeraj Sharma, which is in possession of PTI.

Manchanda is peeved that despite statutory instructions that no employee should rejoin work without a COVID-19 negative certificate, rules were not followed. The employee in question has been show-caused.

"There was an office order stating whosoever takes sick leaves related to the symptoms of Covid shall not rejoin duty without getting Covid test," the letter read.

"However Mr. ....... (name withheld) joined duty without any Covid negative report. Please seek answers from him regarding this immediately. Office orders need to be followed strictly. There is no room for carelessness at the moment."

When Manchanda was contacted, he said: "Right now, it would be risky to open the Kotla. The office was open but now we have to shut down everything and once everyone has completed their isolation period, we will consider reopening. We can't take risk."

The DDCA had planned the start of training for its probables in a phased manner from the beginning of October but there is no surety of that happening considering that Delhi has had a surge of COVID-19 caseload in the past week.