NEW DELHI: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh today asked the local administration in Jammu & Kashmir to involve Jammu Municipal Corporation and Srinagar Municipal Corporation in the Vaccination drive in a big way because, being duly elected bodies of the two capital cities, these have a huge potential to augment the Modi government’s massive vaccination programme, so that it could turn into a “Jan Andolan” .
In a detailed interaction with Mayors, Deputy Mayors and Chairpersons of Swachh Bharat Mission and Health/Sanitation Departments of Jammu and Srinagar Municipal Corporations, Dr Jitendra Singh said, both the Corporations have the capacity to proactively take the drive forward by enlisting maximum community participation. He said, elected representatives have the capacity to augment the Vaccination Drive in a people friendly manner.
Chander Mohan Gupta, Mayor and Purnima Sharma, Deputy Mayor Jammu, and Junaid Mattoo, Mayor Srinagar, among others, offered their inputs.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his interaction with the State and district officials yesterday emphasised that continuous efforts are being made to increase the supply of Covid-19 vaccine on a very large scale and the Health Ministry is streamlining the same. All the States and UTs will get a schedule of the next 15 days, so that they can prioritise the vaccination drive in each district.
Calling upon elected representatives to make the Vaccination Programme a Jan-Andolan, Dr Jitendra Singh underlined the need for Special Camps in collaboration with Corporations. He also emphasised that along with Medical and Administrative measures, Community Management of COVID is equally important and urged the Community leaders to create awareness about unnecessary hoarding of essential drugs or oxygen.
Dr Jitendra Singh called upon the elected representatives to instil confidence building measures among the common man and reiterated that “Precaution, Not Panic” is the basic mantra to fight this pandemic. He also urged them to undertake special awareness campaigns about the COVID protocols and the need for early vaccination to defeat COVID-19. The Minister said, people should also be made aware that COVID treatment is very much covered under the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat Yojana.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that he is in regular touch with the Union Health Ministry as well as Lt Governor and senior officials of Jammu and Kashmir, and the Centre is taking all measures to augment COVID infrastructure and support in the UT. He said, apart from Jammu and Srinagar, efforts are on to set up DRDO COVID Care Centres in other areas as well. The Minister said that private hospitals will also be roped in to earmark beds for Covid care.
Dwelling on the need for Telemedicine facility, Dr Jitendra Singh said that it is being revived in a big way. He said, guidelines already exist for empanelment of recognised doctors across India for tele-consultation of patients. He also disapproved the practice of indiscriminate referrals of patients to GMC Jammu and Srinagar, and emphasised that mildly symptomatic patients can follow protocol prescriptions and treat themselves at home isolation.
It may be recalled that Dr Jitendra Singh had yesterday dispatched separate consignments of COVID related material for the two capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar respectively, carrying separate kits containing face masks, sanitizers and other accessories. The earlier consignments of COVID related material arranged by him were sent to all the six districts of his Lok Sabha constituency of Udhampur-Kathua-Doda.
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