Making life in red zones easier for poor families

ASHA workers, ward volunteers working round-the-clock to ensure their needs are met

With restrictions on inward and outward movement, life in a colony declared a red zone is crippled. For the residents here, getting the essential commodities every day has become a worrisome affair. Even more so for people from the economically poor background.

A daily wage earner, Chowdappa, from Mukkaripeta in Hindupur says: “The situation in the red zones can be likened to an ‘open jail’, with police, revenue, and health officials watching each and every movement of people round-the-clock.”

Government supplies only rice to those in the Below Poverty Line(BPL) category. But they also need filtered drinking water, milk and vegetables. With no income for the past one month and no means to earn, many of them have been surviving on the charity of some organisations providing these essentials.

These resources are also closed since red zone containment measures came into force. Even if the administration is arranging for distribution of essentials through mobile carts, only the well-off families are able to purchase them.

In this background, the cooked food provided by the the Rural Development Trust(RDT) to the households in the red zones has come as a breather. The RDT had supplied 1 lakh food packets at 17 locations in the district during the lockdown period so far.

“The real foot soldiers are, however, ward volunteers, who are braving the risk and doing all odd jobs like drawing money from ATMs for the residents, making available milk and medicines for them. The ANMs and ASHA workers have been keeping track of everyone’s health and any small complaint is monitored by a Medical Officer,” District Containment Officer R. Jagannath Singh told The Hindu .

Those in red zones in the district, wishing to report any issue, could directly call / message Mr. Singh on phone number: 9440810112.

There are WhatsApp groups for every 50 houses with ward volunteers being the moderators and revenue, municipal and medical staff also being part of them to take care of any request from the residents - be it for grocery, milk, medicine or issues related to health.