Kolkata: Eleven days. 10,000 calls. Minimum action time: 30 minutes.
Thirty minutes is the minimum time that the state government has taken to resolve most issues regarding migrant crisis, distribution of food grains at ration shops, transport and many more after receiving over 10,000 calls in the past ten days at the State Emergency Operation Centre at Nabanna during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Besides addressing the issues on war footing to help people with various problems immediately after receiving their calls, subsequent "hourly analysis" of each and every call by bifurcating them in 14 different categories has ensured major policy decisions that have helped Bengal come up as a "role model" in fighting the COVID-19 situation.
Sources in the state secretariat stated that since March 25 almost 10,000 phone calls were attended by the officials working round-the-clock at the State Control Room in the State Emergency Operation Centre that was set up at Nabanna. Senior most IAS officers are supervising the entire operation in three different shifts.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced setting up of the State Control Room where people can call the toll free numbers 1070 and (033)22143526. Twenty telephone sets were found constantly ringing and a set of officials have been busy attending the same.
Two mid-level officials are supervising the team who are receiving the calls and each and every crucial matter is immediately being brought to the notice of IAS officers at the control room.
The IAS officers are then taking up the matter with concerned district magistrate, superintendent of police or commissioner of police as required. The matter is taken up with the concerned official if it is related to any particular department of the state government.
As soon as the issue is addressed, the concerned official has to give a "call closure" message to the State Control Room and it is considered that the matter has been taken care of.
"It was just 30 minutes by which most cases, for which immediate action was needed, were resolved. In some cases it went up to a maximum of 120 minutes and not more than that. However, the policy related matters took a bit more time. But they were addressed within the minimum time following necessary discussions," said a senior state government official on condition of anonymity.
A team of IT personnel are also working round-the-clock along with the people who are receiving calls. The IT personnel are maintaining a database of all the calls received and their problems are being bifurcated in 14 different categories including issues related to ration cards, people stuck outside the state, gathering at a particular location by violating restriction norms, transport issues, availability of medicine, suspected COVID-19 cases, willingness to work as volunteers and willingness to contribute in the state relief fund. There is also a miscellaneous category.
The data is getting uploaded in a dashboard that all concerned officials can easily go through. "District-wise analysis of the same is also being done to take necessary subsequent steps for respective areas," the official added.
With a series of steps taken by the state government, the number of calls has gone down at present and the reason for contacting the state government is also found to be changing. Now, almost 50 percent of the calls are queries about ration and food related issues.