Mumbai: In Dharavi’s account, credits of praise from World Bank

MUMBAI: After the World Health Organisation, the World Bank has praised the efforts made to control the spread of Covid-19 cases in Dharavi, the country’s largest slum with a population of 7 lakh.
BMC officials said the World Bank praised the BMC’s efforts of “customised solutions”, community involvement and perseverance.
Dharavi, which was dubbed as one of the worst hotspots in the city at the start of the Covid pandemic in Mumbai, has been registering cases in single or double digits for the past four months.
On Wednesday, BMC commissioner I S Chahal, who took charge at the height of the Covid peak in May, expressed happiness at the Bank’s acknowledgement of the ‘Dharavi model’. Chahal had made several rounds of Dharavi to understand problems at the ground.
In Dharavi, local ward officials started mobilizing resources since the first case was identified in the area on April 1. They were the first to rope in private doctors and hospitals located in the slum pockets for the ‘test, treat and trace’ policy. Teams of BMC and private doctors visited thousands of homes over two weeks to catch cases early.
A BMC official, however, stated that there was no official communication from the World Bank directly to the BMC so far.