Kolkata: At a time when the entire state is under lockdown due to the prevailing COVID-19 situation, some police officers in the districts are working tirelessly to ensure that the state machinery runs smoothly.
Some young officers are not only sensitising the people and helping them to get a steady supply of essential things, but are also ensuring that the crops that are still in the fields are stored properly, so that there is no dearth of supply during the post-lockdown period.
The matter came to the fore from the Facebook post of ADG (Traffic) Vivek Sahay. "Wisdom is usually associated with age. The older the person, the wiser he has chances to be. Amongst bureaucrats, it is very typical to be patronising about junior officers. COVID-19 is something which offers little guidance from age related wisdom. The young officers are really battling it out," posted Sahay.
He attached a written communication to him by SP West Midnapore Dinesh Kumar to substantiate his post.
"Today we in cities are able to face the lockdown because supplies from rural areas are still coming in. Tomorrow, we can face an extended lockdown only if the normal agricultural production cycle is not allowed to be disrupted. Efforts of Officers like Dinesh and their team requires to be told to all," Sahay further wrote.
Kumar has formed a Gram Panchayat-level taskforce including one local Asha level worker, two civic volunteers and a village resource person from civil administration for monitoring the health condition of everyone in home quarantine.
10 dedicated civic volunteer teams in each police station area have been formed for home assistance. The district police are promoting home delivery systems like thelas, mobile van and motor vans so that people can get essential food items and vegetables at their doorstep.
"We have opened the 24*7 helpline number 8001007868 available in our control room for elderly people and for medical emergency. We are using the service of our volunteers and young members of various clubs who had worked with us in different crowd control programmes during festivals," Kumar's letter states.
SP of East Burdwan Bhaskar Mukherjee has set an example by keeping a close watch over production and agricultural cycle in the villages. He has informed Sahay that lifting of potatoes from the fields is at an advanced stage, from where they are going to the cold storages, while full support is being given for lifting of hay/husk for cattle fodder and even for operation of boilers of milk factories.
Mukherjee has also pledged to donate 10 units of blood everyday for the next 20 days.