Among the notables was Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. She posted a photo wearing a mask on Twitter to say: "Back to working in North Block office with a home-made mask this morning."

 

 

Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar too reached his office by 10 a.m. and held a meeting with I&B Secretary Rajiv Mittal and two additional secretary rank officers, say sources. The I&B ministries work on dissemination of information on the coronavirus at a time when fake news has been rampant was reviewed. It is learnt, a list of all employees of the ministry is asked to be prepared so they can be deputed on rotation basis.

 

All cars reaching ministries in Shastri Bhawan, that houses a host of ministries were properly sanitized before they were allowed to enter. This included the car of ministers.

 

Among others who visited their ministry were Union Culture Minister Prahlad Patel and Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank. Both of them were properly in masks.

 

In fact, Patel held a meeting with his official where training of hotel staffs that are being used to house doctors was on the agenda. Taj group, Lalit among many have thrown their hotels open for housing medical staffs.

 

Social distancing measures were kept in mind. Space was maintained between two chairs, shows a video of the meeting that IANS has access to.

 

They resumed their work with around one-third of the essential staff members in every ministry to maintain social distancing norms of the lockdown to contain the spread of novel coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic.

 

However, all the ministers as well as the officials and their staff had to go through thermal scanning before they entered in their respective ministries in North Block, South Block and Shastri Bhavan-based offices.

 

Minister of State for the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region and Minister of State for Prime Minister's Office; Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh first time arrived his office at North Block with bare minimum staff.

 

These Ministers were working from home since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced three-week lockdown from March 24 midnight.

 

The rejoining comes in the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking ministers to physically go to ministries starting Monday and keep their officials on rotation basis. India's 21 days shutdown to contain spread of the coronavirus ends on Tuesday, but is likely to be extended.

 

Meanwhile, there have been few ministers who have been regularly visiting their ministries, even while most ministers worked from home, using video conferencing. Both minister of states for Home - G. KiShan Reddy and Nityanand Rai have been regularly visiting the North Block to take stock of situation. Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar too, have been visiting his ministry during the shutdown.