It’s a little after 6 on a Saturday evening, and Captain Rupinder Kaur is winding her way through the many police barricades in Gurugram. She is stopped at several points, but when she says she’s from the civil defence team, the police wave her through, some nodding at her in acknowledgement. The police are, after all working closely with the volunteers who feed into the civil defence system — about 340 of whom show up daily, staying sometimes upto 12 hours to reach out to people, with food.
On her way home, Captain Rupinder, who joined as a volunteer about 10 days ago, stops to pick up medicines for someone for someone in need, and when the chemist hears she’s taking them to a fellow citizen, he gives them away for free. “It’s amazing how regular citizens are responding to this,” she says.
The civil defence that works under Manish Yadav, the Tehsildar of Wazirabad (he reports to Amit Khatri, the Deputy Commissioner), currently sits in the Traffic Tower, in DLF Phase IV, so they can coordinate with the police, about 100 of whom are involved in the ‘operation’. Here, they gather each morning at 9.30 for a briefing of the day’s work. This is followed by dispensing cooked food (twice a day), and dry rations (stored in a godown in the building) to areas that have called in for help.
The information is based on about 500-1,000 calls received on three helpline numbers, two set up by Airtel, and 1950, Gurugram’s district administration central number. When each vehicle leaves the building, it holds a driver, a constable, and two or three volunteers from the civil defence team.
Chander Mohan, DCP East and DCP Traffic, Gurugram | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
“As soon as the lockdown was announced, we were just four people to begin with — me, Saikat (Datta), Manish, and Mohit (Sharma, a citizen designated as the Chief Warden of the civil defence programme in March). Anticipation ka kaam jo tha — problem ko identify karna, the major credit goes to Saikat (The major credit for identifying and anticipating the problem goes to Saikat),” says Chander Mohan, the DCP East with an additional charge of DCP Traffic.
Datta, who has been a journalist for over 20 years, has experienced the 2004 tsunami, the 2005 J&K earthquake, and the 2008 Kosi floods. “During the tsunami, we landed in Car Nicobar and the Base Commander came out in a towel and shirt,” he says, adding that when the capacity of those who are rescuers themselves is hit, the disaster precipitates. “The Government capacity goes down, and it’s about plugging the gaps,” he says.
There are several individuals and organisations working towards helping migrants, but his idea was to bring together the various stakeholders, by creating a unit as soon as the lockdown was announced. Here, citizens could come together with administrative units and the law enforcement agency that has protective powers. Called the Gurugram COVID-19 Integrated Command Centre, it is based on the ops (operations) room concept that is the nucleus of coordinated army action.
In 16 private vehicles and three from the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram, they claim to have delivered about 3.34 lakh cooked meals and 30,000 food packets of dry ration until now. Dry ration packs contain 5 kilograms of atta, 3-5 kilograms rice, 1 kilogram dal, .5 to 1 litre oil, salt, .5 to 1 kilogram sugar, tea, turmeric and coriander, for a family of 5. There are also dignity kits with sanitary napkins, soap, tissue paper, sanitizer that come in sometimes, based on donations. Once they cover an area, they return with supplies in a few days.
Gurugram was divided into four zones with a zonal head in each. Calls come in to a verification team that tries to understand the needs of the person calling. There are two data teams: one handles mapping of the city and stock data (inflow and outflow of food material), the other keeps in touch with RWAs who wish to donate rations. This group also accepts donations via their organisaton The Dialogue, through Ketto. There’s also a quick response team (QRT) that responds to distress calls.
Out on one such call to a tenement in Jharsa, the QRT distributes cooked food and checks how quickly they need to send dry rations in. The priority are those who are the hungriest. The team admits though that even those who live in these windowless rooms, sometimes three or four people to a cramped area, may soon slip into a situation where they have nothing to eat, because many depend on daily wages.
Food supply is sustained only because of private citizens, the companies they run, and NGOs. For instance, Hero Motocorp had started with giving out 2,000 cooked food packets. Today, they are doing 3,000. Maruti, Chaayos, Food India, Janta Rasoi, DLF Foundation, Zomato, Shri Vishwakarma University, have all offered food. Sandeep Tyagi, another private citizen who is in-charge of cooked food says all he has to do is to make a call, and people give.
To keep track of where they have delivered and to ensure that delivery takes place periodically, Naveen Yadav of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) created an app so the constable in each vehicle could log data on the amount dropped; the location would be automatically picked up.
There have been other instances of people stepping forward: a gentleman who called several people on the team to make sure a tailor with a family of five got included in the food distribution system, and a lady from DLF phase 1 who is gathering rations from her neighbours. People have offered matkas and masks, and even a thank-you kit to the volunteers.
While there is a sense of overall positivism in the office, with Manish Yadav saying, “We may start the day with a problem, but by the end of the day it is resolved,” the set up isn’t trouble-free. The only trained staff is the police, there is not much coordination with other NGOs working in the area resulting in time wasted visiting the same area, there is now the fear of cooked food going bad in the heat, and there has been no training so teams must learn on the job.
What makes for good coordination between departments though? “Experience, dedication, and discipline,” says Mohan, adding that it was “human inventory” that helped them respond immediately, and in a structured manner.