COVID-19/FRONTLINE

says ASHA worker Janaki Sahu, adding that the village residents are strictly adhering to all preventive measures against coronavirus. In fact, most have developed the habits of maintaining social distance and washing hands with soaps. “This is the result of awareness advertisements on television and our efforts to motivate them,” says Janaki. However, she says, the paranoia against the disease is so strong that people have stopped taking bath in village ponds and canals fearing that it might spread through the waterbodies.

To err on the side of caution, the district administration of Panna in Madhya Pradesh has asked ASHA workers to stay alert. Hunger, poverty and recurrent droughts have forced many families from the district to migrate to distant cities. With factories shut, they might soon start returning home. Rekha Shivareto, ASHA worker at Jardhoba village, says she visits households in her village twice a day to provide data on real-time basis. In the absence of any provision of masks or hand sanitisers from the authorities, she prefers tying a thick towel around her face and keeping a soap handy.

In Chhattisgarh’s tribal district of Dhamtari, community health volunteers, mitanins, are innovating ways to protect themselves and the communities. Urmila Makram, who works as a mitanin in Kumhada village, wears a mask she has prepared using a plain white cloth. “I wash it every day after returning home and reuse it,” she says. She has also successfully organised a social gathering while ensuring social distancing. “In the first week of April, our family had to conduct the ritual of nahawan, following the death of my mother in a road accident,” says Bharti Makram, a resident. “As soon as Urmila got to know about it, she asked us to invite very few relatives to the function, avoid traditional practices like hugging or touching the feet of elders, and request guests to return the same day,” says Bharti. To make sure that her advice

Panna district, anganwadi worker Asha Singh says following the lockdowm, she has been asked to educate people about washing hands at regular intervals and maintaining social distance. While this is an uphill task at a place where water availability is scarce and people depend on gathering firewood and forest produce, trudging through the hilly terrain carrying loads of food packets has compounded her hardship. Though preparing hot cooked meal for toddlers has stopped since the anganwadi centres remain closed during the lockdown, anganwadi workers have been instructed to continue providing nutritious meal to expectant and lactating mothers and weaning children in the form of dry ration, delivered at their doorstep.

Kerala, however, has ensured that no beneficiary of anganwadi remains deprived of cooked food. In fact, to ensure that no one starves, the government has announced free home delivery of food essentials to the poor and initiated community kitchens with the help of Kudumbashree workers.

The effort of decentralised governance to fight off the pandemic can be seen at its best in Uttarakhand, known for strong local bodies. Here in Dhaneti village of Dunda block, gram pradhan Harsh Bahuguna has been working relentlessly. “Soon after the announcement of lockdown, the government asked us to screen and quarantine families returning home, without making any provision for sanitisers, masks or gloves. We mobilised tailors who were sitting idle. Within a couple of days they stitched 600 to 700 masks, which were then distributed to residents, ASHA and anganwadi workers and migrants walking back to their villages,” he says.

Bahuguna has also obtained seeds of vegetables like tomato, capsicum and potato from the horticulture department and is encouraging village youths to grow those for a steady supply of vegetables and

A SELF-HELP GROUP IN DEHRADUN HAS PREPARED 3,000 DOUBLELAYER AND TRIPLE-LAYER MASKS, AND IS PROVIDING THOSE TO ANGANWADI WORKERS ALONG WITH TAKE-HOME RATION PACKETS FOR THE BENEFICIARY

engage them in case the government decides to extend the lockdown period.

Besides the village heads, women selfhelp groups (SHG) are extending their help. Geeta Maurya, founder of Shakti Swayam Seva Samuh in Dehradun’s Sahaspur block, supplies take-home ration to 43 anganwadi centres in the block under the government’s Poshan abhiyan. Following the lockdown, the government has asked anganwadi workers to provide three months of advance ration to the beneficiaries. But no provision has been made to protect the workers, who will visit door-to-door and deliver the food packets, says Maurya. “We have, thus, prepared 3,000 double-layer and triple-layer masks, which we are providing to the anganwadi workers along with take-home ration packets. We are also providing masks to labourers working in our locality,” says Maurya. As the coronavirus gripped the hill state, demand for masks, gloves and sanitisers has increased. “A few days ago we received requests from other districts to supply raw material like mask-making fabric, elastic and thread. It was heartwarming to see how the block development officers came down in their own vehicle to collect the raw material,” says Maurya. These days she is busy giving virtual training to women in other villages on how to make masks.

Then there are those who have unwittingly become part of the infantry fighting coronavirus. One such person is Rahul. The 25-year-old has been working as a cleaner at the night shelters of East Delhi run by the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board. “These night shelters usually get crowded during chilly winter nights,” says Rahul. But following the lockdown, as the Union government asked all states to seal their borders to prevent the virus from spreading to rural areas, and the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal “appealed to everyone to stay where they are”, the national capital’s 225-odd night