The Greater Chennai Corporation has won two awards for COVID-19 management and waterbody restoration at the national level contest organised by the Smart Cities Mission.
The Corporation won the award for innovation in management of COVID-19, particularly for the use of tele-counselling for patients, home quarantine monitoring system, door-to-door surveillance, app for medical support and social media campaign. The Chennai Smart City Mission supported public health officials with various initiatives in battling the pandemic.
A total of 19 tele-counselling centres were set up and technological interventions, including a home quarantining and isolation monitoring system, were successful in reducing the spread of COVID-19, officials said. A total of 17 medical officers, 80 professional volunteers and 200 student volunteers were deployed for helping patients.
Officials said the Vid-Med App, fever camps at 200 wards and FOCUS volunteers to help residents get essential supplies were supported by the Smart City infrastructure developed over a period of few years. Tele-counselling centres were set up at ₹3.58 crore under the Smart City Mission. “The tele-counselling team made intervention in 158 suicidal calls. They created green corridor for 723 patients who needed emergency transit during the pandemic. The Smart City Mission also provided 15 kinds of services during the pandemic,” said Raj Cherubal, Chennai Smart City CEO.
Another award for the Corporation was announced for the restoration of waterbodies. The project has an estimated budget of ₹194 crore, including CSR funding. The city will get 0.87 tmc water and additional groundwater recharge of 4.35 tmc because of the restoration of 1,240 acres of water bodies, said Corporation Commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi. A total of 141 water bodies have been restored, 38 projects are under progress, 25 proposals have been made and six will be taken up shortly, officials said.
A team of officials led by the Commissioner inspected the work on restoration of waterbodies on Friday. The work is expected to be completed ahead of the onset of the northeast Monsoon.
