NMC drafting emergency transportation plan
| Date :25-Mar-2020 |
Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe taking a round of COVID 19 control room at New Administrative building at NMC's Central Office on Tuesday.
Staff Reporter :
Amidst fear of likely spike in symptomatic cases of COVID 19, Emergency Transportation Plan is being drafted by the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC). Right now situation on the virus outbreak front is under control as there is no new addition to positive cases of the deadly virus that has enforced lockdown across the globe. But given the magnitude of task ahead with indications of likely increased in period of lockdown, Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe has ordered senior officers to start preparation of transportation plan.
Though senior officers are still discussing the plan, it is learnt that NMC might be exploring possibilities of using Aapli Buses for transporting essential commodities within city limits. The exact details of the plan are still being worked out but there are chances that civic body might go for door to door delivery of essential commodities or something like this.
This would be done to ensure citizens under lockdown do not panic and stay confined indoors but at same time they do not face any problem in accessing essential daily items. Especially people in slums are the worst hit as they may face major problem in having access to food items. Apart form them the daily wagers could face prospects of running out of essential supplies as given small spaces they cannot stock up foodgrains, vegetables. In that light Mundhe might have thought of arranging transport of goods to various colonies to ensure people are at ease and strictly follow the lockdown orders. Earlier, Mundhe on Tuesday took review of the COVID-19 control room set-up at ground floor of New Administrative Building at Central Office of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC).
Mundhe interacted with the persons manning the helplines of novel coronavirus and other special line installed for handling complaints about drinking water and sewage. He took note of total calls received on both the helplines and nature of querries from citizens so as to formulate future strategy on health front of citizens. Clarifying about the lockdown, Mundhe said there is no ban on stepping out of houses for stocking up on daily supplies of groceries, milk, vegetables and medicines as per individual requirements. However citizens should take utmost care not to misuse the facility of movement for essential supplies as it is in their best interest to abide totally by advisory issued by State and Central health administration from time to time. People should ensure that there is a distance of five feets between them while going for purchases.
Further NMC has now added one more helplines number at Control Room and they are 0712-256021/2551866. For handling water supply and sewage treatment complaints separate helplines numbers are there for citizens and same was activated from March 23 onwards. About 15 complaints about problems with supply of drinking water and 12 about sewage were received on the helpline of NMC and most of them were resolved and work on others is on. For this the Helpline no is 0712-2532474. As to coronavirus front about 1011 citizens sought information on the helpline from March 13 when it was put into service. On Tuesday from 8 am to 2 pm about 57 citizens dialled the helpline and sought clarification and shared their inputs and also lodged complaints. The control room is managed by one medical officer, one nurse and two employees.