Sexagenarian D. Mohan Krishna of Pragathinagar urgently needed medicines for his ailing wife. The elderly couple paid money online but no one to depend or send to the shop for delivering the medicines.
He called up the newly-set up COVID control room of Cyberabad police. Within the next few hours, a volunteer knocked on his doors carrying the bag of medicines.
Hundreds of citizens like Mr. Krishna facing emergency situations are receiving this ‘helping hand’ in the form of a control room.
Be it transporting medicines, rushing ailing patients to hospitals or delivering groceries to old age homes, the COVID-19 control room staffers are serving people round the clock during the lockdown.
Soon after the government announced the lockdown, Cyberabad police top brass anticipated it would be difficult to give personal audience to the grievance of every citizen. That is how the COVID control room was born on March 24. In less than 3,000 square feet area, four policemen and around eight volunteers work in three shifts.
For the first few days, the control room had to attend 2,000 calls a day on an average. “One day, we answered more than 3,000 calls. Now, it is averaging around 1,200 calls a day,” Traffic Additional DCP Ch. Praveen Kumar Reddy, heading the control room, said.
“The control room has two mobile numbers — 9490617440 and 9490617431. The phones keep ringing. Medical emergencies apart, people stranded due to lockdown are calling for passes. Interestingly, a lot of citizens and organisations came forward to do their bit,” he said.
“Many of them wanted to distribute food voluntarily and sought permission. But Cyberabad Commissioner V.C. Sajjanar did not allow voluntary food distribution since it involved the risk of spread of the virus. Staff of the control room coordinate all such calls and now we’re distributing 25,000 food packets each day in areas under the commissionerate,” he added.
The police took the help of voluntary organisations such as Robin Hood Army, Ramchandra Mission, and some private companies, to distribute food packets. Society for Cyberabad Security Council, which had been in the frontline in public service, is doing its bit by providing infrastructure and logistics support.
All of them are coming to the rescue of people in need during lockdown. Coordinating with donors, they distributed 9,200 groceries among poor families in different localities.
