Jagan’s village volunteer idea catches national attention The system is helping Andhra Pradesh to disseminate information in villages within hours

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s novel idea of a village volunteer system has attracted national attention in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The national media highlighted the village volunteer system and praised Reddy.

In controlling the coronavirus, village volunteers are playing a key role. Through this system, the state government is able to get any information across the state within hours. Due to this, only 10 coronavirus-positive cases have been registered so far in the state.

No other state in the country has this kind of facility and several states are considering to follow the system. After coming to power, Mr Reddy established the village volunteers system, recruiting about 2.5 lakh unemployed youth at one volunteer for every 50 houses.

The responsibility of these volunteers is to hand over the rations and pensions in the 50 houses allotted to them. Every day, or once a week, the volunteers must visit every house allotted to them. With the regular interaction, the volunteers build a good rapport with the family members of those 50 houses.

This is helping the government get information on spreading the coronavirus across and to enable people take measures to control it. The volunteers are able to know if any member of a family returns from a foreign country and send them to the government.The major problem faced by the state governments is about information of foreign returnees in their states. But the AP government gets such information within minutes. Health department officials are then able to conduct necessary tests and give them proper advice.

The 2 5 lakh volunteers have done surveys of about 1 43 crore households in the state on coronavirus. Through the information collected, officials have conducted screening tests for about 25000 foreign returnees to the state. This shows the importance of village volunteers and the benefit of this system.

Through the volunteer system, the AP government is able to get any information across the state within hours.

Due to this, only 10 coronavirus-positive cases have been registered so far in the state.