Tradition broken for safety: Dahisar society fights the coronavirus
At Gurukul Co-operative housing society at Dahisar, house help have been given leaves, while five security staff have been asked to stay on premises, with society members taking turns to provide them food and snacks.
For the past 20 years, Gurukul Co-operative Housing Society at Dahisar has been following a tradition every evening – all residents gather in the sitting area, either to read out prayers or for a chat. Amid the Covid-19 outbreak, the office-bearers on Saturday decided to remove chairs from the sitting area and restrict movement of members, unless necessary.
The society has three wings with 190 flats, comprising 800 members, who are mostly businessmen from the Gujarati community, with some south Indian and Maharashtrian residents. The committee has put up a list of rules that the society members need to follow during the lockdown, which includes no outsiders, no relatives and all deliveries to be dropped at the main gate or the lobby.
The milk vendor who was earlier allowed till the door of the house is restricted to the lobby. Before the lockdown, residents of the society used to be informed through a software application about a visitor, now through the same application, they are informed about deliveries. “It is a complete lockdown, only a few people, say maybe one member from a family is allowed to move out just to get grocery or vegetable and other essentials. All house help and even relatives are not allowed. If a resident has a guest or someone from abroad coming over, they need to inform the office first,” said Ajay Jain, committee member.
House help have been given leaves, while five security staff have been asked to stay on premises, with society members taking turns to provide them food and snacks. Rashmin Parikh, secretary of the society, said, “Outside movement of society members has cut been down by at least 75%, only our security staff is seen down, who have been provided with masks. We get only BMC staff to clean our premises.”
Parikh said they recently got their society sanitised and are now looking for contractors who would maintain it on a daily basis.
“We will learn a few things from this entire process. Everyone needs to be self-reliant because you cannot depend on someone. Also, we need to save for a rainy day,” said Manish Vora, a chartered accountant.