The State government has come up with a mobile application called Mahakavach to trace contacts of COVID-19 positive patients as well those who are home-quarantined, in an attempt to reduce the load on the manual workforce of municipal corporations and the government.
The smartphone of a person tested positive for the novel coronavirus will be installed with this app. “The application will provide details about the person’s travel history and the places they visited as also the number of people who they came in contact with,” said a government official.
The Mahakavach app, through its contact-tracing feature, will provide the list of all public places such as hotels, restaurants, religious places and railway stations that the person could have visited. “We are sending our officials to find out all these details. The mobile application will readily make the list available, saving time,” said the official.
The quarantine-tracking feature of the app is meant for violators who, despite instructions, do not follow the quarantine rules. The app has features such as ‘geo fencing’ and ‘selfie attendance.’
“The person will be allowed to roam a in pre-defined radius. Once that border is crossed, the application will inform the authorities. Similarly, the authorities can ask them for a selfie, which has to be uploaded using this feature,” said the official.
Multiple agencies are involved in its creation: The Maharashtra State Innovation Society, under the State government’s Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Department, has collaborated with the National Health Authority and received assistance from the Nashik District Innovation Society and Nashik Municipal Corporation.
The app has been made available on Google store but can be used only by those who have tested positive for the coronavirus. Citizens who are unaffected by the virus will not be allowed to use the app. The Nashik administration is using the app, which will soon catch on in the rest of the State.
Published - April 02, 2020 12:38 am IST
