Efforts to keep victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy safe from the coronavirus infection was foremost in the minds of administrators in the initial days of the pandemic, the then collector of Madhya Pradesh’s capital district said on Saturday. Tarun Pithode, a 2009-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer who served as the Bhopal district magistrate (DM) between June 2019 and June 2020, has come out with a book narrating experiences from the Covid-19 pandemic.India reported its first Covid-19 case on January 27, 2020. Madhya Pradesh’s first case was reported from Jabalpur district on March 20, 2020. Pithode has talked to about a dozen bureaucrats in different states to bring about the 225-page book, titled The Battle Against Covid. Diary of a Bureaucrat.The book was released here by former Air India CMD and Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani. “When I left the office of collector Bhopal, it struck to me that I should document what all happened… how doctors, paramedics, police personnel and many many other personnel of the government came together to fight the Covid battle. I wanted to document this for our future generations,” the officer said during the launch event.Pithode is currently serving as the MD of the Madhya Pradesh State Civil Supplies Corporation. The book also highlights various aspects of how people’s daily lives were affected by the pandemic and the response of the citizens of Bhopal to it, he said.“Everyone had fears in mind… about the safety and well-being of the gas tragedy victims in Bhopal as they could be very vulnerable to the virus,” he said. However, the officer said, every one in the administration rose up to mount an effective fight against the coronavirus.“The number of Covid-19 positive patients kept on increasing in Jahangirabad — a heavily populated area in the old city — as did the number of deaths. It gave me goosebumps as memories of the Bhopal gas disaster started flaring in my mind. I felt waves of fear coursing through my body every time there was news of a Covid death. It struck me that this fear was due to the comparison of the pandemic with the disastrous gas tragedy,” he wrote in the book. More than five lakh people were affected and over 15,000 were killed after methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) on the intervening night of December 2 to 3, 1984, which was then located on the outskirts of Bhopal.The officer said there were many lessons to be learnt during the Covid pandemic and if faced with any challenge of this magnitude again, he would plan a better information technology support system as it was found that they lacked in software support during the initial days of the pandemic. Asked if the lockdown enforced in the country due to Covid-19 was too long, he said it gave the administration time to prepare for the battle.Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Assembly Elections Live Updates here.