At PM’S virtual meet, Ahmednagar’s Covid model gets praise

MUMBAI: Chief minister (CM) Uddhav Thackeray participated in a virtual meeting in which Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi interacted with the collectors of 17 districts from Maharashtra to share the best practices to tackle the rising Covid-19 cases.

Senior government officials said collectors of districts with high infectivity rate in the state had been chosen for the meeting.

Health minister Rajesh Tope, who was present in the meeting, said that the idea was to learn from each other’s work and emulate it to bring the pandemic in control on district level.

Ahmednagar district collector Dr Rajendra Bhosale spoke about the protocol and practices adopted in his district to curb the cases and on the overall management.

Both Modi and Thackeray appreciated the efforts put in by Dr Bhosale to control the cases, a statement from the chief minister’ office (CMO) said.

In the meeting, Bhosale spoke about how Hivre Bazar village in the district was made Covid-free, following which the pattern was implemented in 1,316 other villages in Ahmednagar.

The ‘Hivre Bazar model’ was adopted by social worker and sarpanch from the village Popatrao Pawar. He formed four teams of health and volunteers who first conducted house-to-house surveys of an entire village and then shifted every infected person to the isolation centre for further treatment.

People who first hesitated to go to the centre, got ready after teams ensured taking over their day-to-day duty responsibilities towards their farms and animals.

Dr Bhosale said that similarly they appointed separate nodal officers for testing, vaccination and charges levied by private hospitals and it brought more consistency in the work. He added that in the second wave, home isolation was stopped completely, and patients were treated in Covid care centres that brought down the case load in the district.

After the meeting, Thackeray called up Bhosale and congratulated him for the work, a CMO statement said