Odisha's Ganjam dist using mobile app to track people in quarantine

Authorities in Odisha's Ganjam district are using a mobile app called 'Swosth' to keep track of people placed under quarantine. With many migrants testing positive, the app keeps track of their movements and notifies the authorities if a person is found moving away from his or her location.

Ganjam (Odisha): With coronavirus cases on the rise in Odisha owing to the return of migrants from several states, the Ganjam district administration is now taking the help of a mobile app to keep track of those placed under quarantine.

A young engineer from the district, Swadhin Nayak, who is the CEO of the company Teceads, developed the mobile application named 'Swosth', which tracks the movements of those placed under quarantine.

Authorities in Ganjam, one of the worst affected districts in Odisha, were having a tough time keeping track of the home-quarantined persons.

With scores of migrants returning home, it is impossible for health workers to physically keep track of their movements.

To make matters worse, many people under quarantine have not been strictly following the guidelines.

So, the district administration is now installing the app on the cellphones of those being asked to go on home-quarantine. The app lists out DOs and DON'Ts for the users.

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However, the main feature of the app is that it notifies the authorities if a person under home quarantine moves out of his or her location.

The app has already proved to be useful for the authorities. Earlier on May 18, the Twitter handle of the Ganjam district magistrate and collector informed that based on the data received from the app, one person violating home quarantine rules had been shifted to institutional quarantine.

• We are duly committed in helping our #CoronaWarriors in fight against #Covid_19 . #StayHome #staysafe. @CMO_Odisha @HFWOdisha @Ganjam_Admin https://t.co/AYGnAbytVG

  — Teceads (@teceads) May 18, 2020 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  We are duly committed in helping our #CoronaWarriors in fight against #Covid_19 . #StayHome #staysafe. @CMO_Odisha @HFWOdisha @Ganjam_Admin https://t.co/AYGnAbytVG

  — Teceads (@teceads) May 18, 2020

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  We are duly committed in helping our #CoronaWarriors in fight against #Covid_19 . #StayHome #staysafe. @CMO_Odisha @HFWOdisha @Ganjam_Admin https://t.co/AYGnAbytVG

  — Teceads (@teceads) May 18, 2020

Yesterday, as many as 86 more persons tested positive for COVID-19 in Odisha, raising the total number of such cases in the state to 1,189. Ganjam remained one of the worst-affected districts with 322 cases.

The fresh cases were mostly people from Odisha who had returned from Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Chhattishgarh, Haryana, Telangana and four from United Arab Emirates, the official said.

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