The government has decided to perform COVID-19 testing of all the incoming migrant labourers in four districts of the Valley in order to streamline the process.
The Divisional Commissioner Kashmir P K Pole took a decision in this regard during a review meeting of the evolving COVID-19 situation in the Valley.
According to the minutes of the meeting, the Divisional Commissioner informed all the participants should be sampled and tested in the four districts – Anantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam and Budgam.
Earlier, the non-local labourers coming from different states of India were sampled at the Jawahar Tunnel (JT) in Qazigund.
The Divisional Commissioner instructed the DCs to identify the centrally-located building at the district and tehsil level and added that the antigen testing would help in quick identification of the positive cases and their separation from others to control the spread of the disease.
Panic gripped Kashmir when a video which has gone viral on social media network sites, showed many non-local labourers heading toward Kashmir say that they have not undergone COVID-19 tests.
On Saturday, thirty-one tractors of local brick kiln operators were caught illegally transporting 200 non-local labourers into Kashmir.
The labourers were found hidden in tractors of three brick kiln operators based in a neighbouring district of Srinagar.
As per the official figures more than 10,000 non-local labourers from different states have come to the Valley during the last two weeks.
Every day, over 60 buses cross the Jawahar Tunnel carrying labourers.
Jammu Kashmir is witnessing a massive rise in the number of COVID-19 cases, taking the total number of infected people till Sunday to 17,920.
J&K Sunday witnessed seven more COVID-19 related deaths, taking the number of people who died of the virus to 312 including 289 from Kashmir and 23 from Jammu division.