The Nation and the world at large are currently facing one of the greatest Pandemic and a serious medical and health challenge from Covid-19, the deadly virus. The Government, the Corona warriors and the Citizens are all fighting to defeat Corona. India is going through a complete lock down period of 40 days in which everything has come to a standstill, including the construction works in the project. On the directions of the Client, CAPC team including the core unit experts and town unit experts are working from home and are in regular touch with the PMU and PIU and are carrying out the project responsibilities.
CAPC works in the community and our motto is that the project benefits reach the general public and various stakeholders. Core unit experts are coordinating and monitoring regularly in 13 towns with SDE-GSs in the project loan towns and community officers in program loan towns and guiding them as per directions received from the client in fulfilling their duties. During the lock down period, CAPC team and the project is showing complete solidarity and commitment towards corona warriors and is also helping in increasing the access of the labourers to the ration, food packets and their other daily needs. CAPC in coordination with the PMU, district administration, PIU and Contractor have carried the following measures and activities to support the fight against Corona.
- Coordinated and facilitated the handing over of 6000 face masks to the district administration in Pali project town through the contractor L&T for Doctors, Medical Staff, Police, Safaikarmi and other Corona warriors.
- Facilitated the distribution of food and ration to the project labourers residing in the labour camps in Jhunjhunu, Bhilwara, Sriganganagar and Pali. More than 150 labourers are residing at labour camp in Sriganganagar.
- As a mark of respect, CAPC organised a program to honour Safai Karamchari and Swacchta Karmi in Sriganganagar much before the outbreak of Corona.
- As per directions of district administration, support provided to the medical team in tourist check-ups in the program loan town Mount Abu in the very initial stage of Corona.
- Supporting in the grievance redressal of public grievances on government Sampark Portal.
Interventions during 2ND Wave of COVID-19
As the second wave of COVID-19 knocked Rajasthan, the Hon’ble Chief Minister, taking cognisance of the large scale exodus of labourers during 1st wave, decided that the migration of labourers needs to be stopped, construction and project works keep going during lock down and necessary things are arranged for the needy and the poor.
So as per directions of the Government, construction works under RUIDP continued during lock down period. Since the cases of corona were increasing continuously, there was also a need to make the labour and community aware about COVID appropriate behaviour, use of face masks, social distancing and hand hygiene and at the same time, the construction activities are not interrupted. Regular monitoring was required. The core unit constantly guided the town units, activities were organised for the labourers and in communities, and the special thing was that the community support was acknowledged in this.
The scale of work was huge, out of total 25 cities, 5 cities were of CAPC‘s Phase-III project loan, 6 cities of Ph-III Program Loan and rest 14 cities were of Phase-IV. The Core unit had a big responsibility and the difficult part was except our 5 cities we had no staff in 20 cities. The PIUs, consultants and the Contractors of the cities had to be oriented to follow COVID protocol, as well as facilitated to conduct awareness activities and to stop the migration of labourers from the project. Every day about 3000 to 3500 labourers were monitored, as a result of which less than four percent of the workers were infected by the corona. The main reasons behind this were COVID appropriate behaviour in the project works, regular sanitisation at project sites and labor camps, timely distribution of masks, soaps, sanitisers and food. Daily reporting was done on these by the Core unit. A total of 1,73,953 masks, 78,315 food packets were distributed and more than 2000 labourers were vaccinated.
As a result of these measures, the migration of labourers almost stopped, they were protected from the effects of corona, the construction works went on continuously, due to which there was no delay in the project despite such serious conditions. The Hon’ble UDH Minister of Rajasthan praised the efforts by calling this a best practice in the ADB funded project.
