With the resumption of the domestic flight operations across India, ‘the covid-19 control room Kashmir’ has witnessed sharp decline in number of “distress calls”.
SofiJavaid, a police officer, posted at the control room said: “In the initial phase of current pandemic, we received around 100 to 150 calls daily, in addition to direct calls received by our nodal officer. But for past two weeks we are receiving only 30 to 40 distress calls daily.”
According to the officials at the control room, the distress calls received were mostly from Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Kolkata, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Indore and Jammu. “We we also received calls from foreign countries including Iran and Bangladesh”.
“Earlier, there was a lot of pressure. We had put some 20 employees on the job who were working 24×7. Now that the flights have resumed, people are moving easily. It has eased a lot of pressure on us,” said nodal officer Qazi Masood posted at the control room.
In the initial phase, officials said the office was also into distribution of rations and medicines to locals and even non-locals. Besides, they said people also used to make frantic calls inquiring about how to get travel passes amid lockdown. The control room was established on March 28 to redress grievances relating to COVID-19 pandemic under supervision of Divisional Commissioner Kashmir Pandurang K Pole.
The control room also received calls relating to civil issues, suspect COVID-19 contact tracing, people stuck outside Kashmir amid lockdown, etc.
“The control room remains in constant touch with resident commissioners of J&K posted in other states,” said DrAadil Rashid, an official posted at the control room.