Ration being handed over to people in Faida village, on Saturday. (Photo by Kamleshwar Singh)

AS MANY as 3,600 families were provided with free ration in Faida village on Saturday.The move came after the Chandigarh Police, conducted a detailed survey and identified 3,500+ families and 19,000+ villagers who needed help.

This was done two days after 42 contacts of the COVID-19 positive patient from Sector 30, were identified and shifted to a community centre in Sector 47, where they have been quarantined.

The village, along with Jagatpura village was the sealed and cordoned of by CRPF personnel.

“The village set up is an age old type where one landlord has numerous numbers of tenants, and most people are farmers, followed by milkmen, daily wagers, auto rickshaw drivers etc. There are no proper concrete roads and only a few shops inside the village, including an Atta chakki, and chemist shops. The survey was started by the police beat staff and was directly executed under the supervision of SI Sarita and her team. It had particulars including the occupation, whether the household has LPG cylinder or not and the number of family members. The whole village was divided into 6six zones. A digital, master list was made combining all the data. The day after the survey was conducted, we came to know of the probability of the village being infected, but being confident of handling any situation, we went forward with sealing the village,” said Inspector Rajdeep Singh, SHO PS 31.

Sources said that once it was decided that ration will be given for free to all families, 3,600 tokens were made and handed over to panna Pradhans. One Panna Pradhan was given charge of almost 30-40 families to distribute the tokens and note their particulars.

They took one day to do the job, following which distribution finally began on Saturday.

Tokens were submitted, Aadhar numbers were noted, sheet entries were cross checked with the master list, and he ration was handed over. This was done so to avoid any duplication of records.

Other facilities in the village, like water supply, gas supply, ATM, etc, are continuing as per normal, and any information is announced through PA systems.

Villagers are thus leading a normal life without any fear of running out of resources.

The police is also planning to start conducting interactive activities in the village to keep people’s morale up.

Such surveys are also being conducted in other jhuggies, tin colonies in the south sub division so that any sealing doesn’t affect the daily lives of people.

Faida village falls under the jurisdiction of Chandigarh, south division, where ASP (south) Neha Yadav is the supervising officer.