East Jaintia Hills: District Magistrate issues SOP for Non Contact Sporting Activities

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJuly 3, 2020

The District Magistrate, East Jaintia Hills District informs the general public that in pursuance to the order issued by the Government of Meghalaya permitting only non-contact sporting activities, the following SOP will be followed for Non- contact sporting activities.

The SOP states that the resumption of non- contact and indirect sporting activities shall be in compliance with government guidelines on health, social distancing and hygiene to ensure safety of all stakeholders. At all times sports organization/associations and other stakeholders must respond to the directives of Health Department or other authorities. The detection of a positive COVID-19 case in sporting club or organization will result in a standard public health response, which could include testing and quarantine of individual as per protocols of the Health and Family Welfare Department.

The SOP also defines Non- contact sport as individual sports with no requirement for physical contact during training or competition and minimal requirement for sharing of equipments such as Archery, shooting, cycling, fencing and Athletics (only track sporting activities which does not require the use of equipments). Whereas, Indirect- contact sports is defined as Sports (individual and team) which lead to indirect contact during training or competition by sharing of equipments like balls shuttlecock, racquet and these include golf, lawn tennis and badminton.

The Procedures for Training and Sporting activities states that full array of training and sporting activities may be performed as individual or pair maintaining social distancing norms of minimum 2 meters between athletes and staff. Personal equipment such as bow. Gun, sword, rackets etc. shall be used without sharing. In the dire need of sharing any of such performed used equipment, it shall be properly disinfected after every single use as per the standard procedure using disinfectant, wearing facemasks gloves and personal precautionary equipment etc.

The SOP also states that sports specific safety equipment such as helmet, eye protectors, face protectors etc, shall not be shared. Shared training equipment must be disinfected after every single use and consistent hand sanitization is a must before, during and after every training session. Additionally, for indirect contact sports, equipment which are bound to be shared and utilized continuously must be handled carefully without using such equipment to rub/ touch face, or remove sweat. No spectators shall be allowed within sporting venue at any time, only athletes and trainers shall be present at the venue.

According to the SOP, the disinfection of premises shall be performed by the custodians of the respective sporting venues. Venues for non- contact sports under the State Sports Council Meghalaya (SSCM) will be disinfected by SSCM. Similarly, community grounds being used for non- contact sporting events will be disinfected by the respective village heads/ association/ clubs/ organization and stakeholder.

Furthermore, all areas within the premises shall be disinfected using clinically disinfectants, the areas to be disinfected includes entrance (doorknob, handles) etc, to premise, building , rooms, washrooms, toilets, playing surfaces, various equipment at the field of play , operational areas for field or play which includes control panels for irrigation system, floodlights and adjacent areas. All common areas which are used by trainers, visitors and all other surfaces which are touched by users after every single use should also be disinfected.

The District Magistrate informs that each athlete will be provided with a consent form (Annexure1) at the sporting venue/ premise. This form is to be duly filled and submitted to the concerned villages heads/ association/ clubs/ organization.