An assistant commissioner of police (ACP) posted at Rashtrapati Bhavan has tested positive for coronavirus. He has been admitted to a Delhi hospital. Several police personnel and staff of the presidential residence have been quarantined.
The senior official's office is situated inside the Rashtrapati Bhavan building.
Last month, residents of around 115 houses in the Rashtrapati Bhavan complex were quarantined after the relative of an employee there tested positive for coronavirus. No employee of President's Secretariat had tested positive.
A COVID-19 positive patient from central Delhi, who was neither an employee of the President's secretariat nor a resident of the President's Estate, died on April 13 with co-morbidities at the BL Kapoor Hospital, a statement had said.
When it was later found that a family member of an employee staying in the Rashtrapati Bhavan complex had been in contact with the patient, all the seven family members were moved to a quarantine facility in central Delhi. One of the family members of the employee subsequently tested positive while the rest tested negative.
Last week, a Rashtrapati Bhavan statement said President Ram Nath Kovind will forgo 30 per cent of his salary for a year and drastically reduce spending on travel and ceremonial banquets to make more resources available for the fight against coronavirus.
The President has given instructions to bring in austerity measures that include holding off on buying a limousine for ceremonial purposes and reworking the scale, decor and menus of banquets.
"In the President's estimation, this will be a small but significant contribution to realise the government's vision of making India self-reliant (aatmanirbhar) and energise the nation to take up the challenge to fight the pandemic and continue our journey for development and prosperity simultaneously," said the statement.
