Context: Recently, Six Inter-ministerial Central Teams are visiting Maharashtra, Rajasthan,Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal to make on the spot assessment of the compliance and implementation of lockdown measures in the wake of COVID19.

• The IMCTs focus is on issues like the supply of essential commodities,social distancing, preparedness of health infrastructure and hospital facility.

• They will also look into aspects like sample statistics in the district, safety of health professionals, availability of test kits, PPEs, masks and other safety equipment and conditions of the relief camps for labour and poor people.

About Inter-Ministerial Central Team

• It is constituted by the Central Government which is headed by Additional Secretary of Government of India.

• It has emphasized upon surveillance measures, medical testing and institutional quarantine along with effective implementation of lockdown especially in containment areas, in order to fight and contain spread of COVID-19 effectively.

• It would make on-spot assessment of situation and issue necessary directions to State Authorities for its redressal and submit their report to Central Government in larger interest of general public.

• The IMCTs focus on a range of issues including compliance and implementation of lockdown measures as per guidelines issued under the Disaster Management Act 2005.

• The Committees have been constituted by the Central Government in exercise of the powers, conferred, inter alia, under Section 35(1), 35(2)(a), 35(2)(e) and 35(2)(i) of the Disaster Management Act 2005.