New Delhi: The Control Room set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in the wake of the first wave of the Covid19 pandemic has handled a total of 13,034 distress calls out of which 854 calls were related to essential goods and services. “Between March 25, 2020, and December 31, 2020, it received as many as 11,377 calls related to food and shelter, 129 calls from North Eastern region and 742 calls on other issues,” the MHA said in its latest report.
Apart from it, from May 2, 2020, to December 31, 2020, a total of 32,986 calls were received from over Shramik special trains for 2,95,327 stranded persons, out of which 2,71,219 were for labourers, 5,388 for students, 1,539 for tourists and 17,052 for others. “In addition to this, 296 calls were received from persons, who wanted to travel to India from abroad and 265 from persons, who wanted to travel abroad from India,” the MHA said.
Ensuring smooth supplies of essential commodities: To ensure smooth movement of all essential items across the country, area officers of the level of additional/joint secretaries were appointed by the MHA. They interacted with the State and UT Government officers concerned to ensure that there was no disruption in transportation, manufacturing and distribution of all goods and services, which were allowed to operate, especially ration, medicines, groceries, milk and vegetables.
Strengthening of MHA Control Room: From March 21, 2020, onwards, Control Room operations in the MHA were expanded by making its functioning round-the-clock under the supervision of senior officers of the level of joint secretaries/additional secretaries, along with the representatives of Union Ministers. The number of helplines was increased from 7 to 66, out of which 15 were dedicated to the people of the North-Eastern region. The Control Room attended to the queries of States and UTs and other Ministries on lockdown measures and addressed Inter-Ministries and inter-State coordination issues. The Ministry has said that prior to the declaration of national lockdown on March 25, 2020, most of the State governments and UTs had already declared lockdown (fully and partially) in their respective States and UTs based on their assessment of the situations.
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