Corona warriors ready for battle

New Delhi: Rolling out its ambitious scheme to cover all households in the city through close to 14,000 teams of “corona foot warriors”, Delhi government on Tuesday briefed the booth-level officers about their role and responsibilities.

A senior official said all teams were likely to be ready by Wednesday evening and the remaining members of each team — beat constables, anganwadi workers, coprorations’ sanitation staff and civil defence volunteers — would also be trained about their role. “While some teams will start working from Wednesday, all 13,750 teams will be on the job from Thursday,” said Sanjay Goel, coordinator of the Corona Foot Warriors Containment and Surveillance Team.

The teams, which were formed by the district magistrates following an order from chief secretary Vijay Dev on Monday, will patrol the designated areas, regularly interact with residents, keep an eye on suspected cases and coordinate with health officials to get the tests done wherever required. They will also ensure compliance of lockdown rules at the ground level and regular supply of essential items in the containment zones.

Although all teams were to start working from Wednesday, officials are still busy rearranging the staff and getting additional manpower. “We have deployed all civil defence volunteers on other assignments. We have now sought additional volunteers from the headquarters. By Thursday, all teams will start working,” district magistrate (west) Neha Bansal said. District magistrate (south) B M Mishra said his team was preparing the list of manpower to be deployed for the task.

Each DM will have about 1,200 teams comprising 6,000 warriors under each of them. Goel, the coordinator of the drive, said the divisional commissioner, along with the district magistrates and the assistant electoral registration officers (AERO), will review the team formation and finalise the training module on Wednesday.

“These teams will have different roles and responsibilities for containment zones, non-containment zones and market areas,” said Goel. All of them will be briefed about their roles before they start working. Each member will also be given hand sanitisers, masks and gloves. “To make them identifiable, we have decided to give them arm bands with Corona Foot Warriors Containment and Surveillance Team written on them,” Goel said.

The does and don’ts for the teams will also be circulated through WhatsApp and will be available on the portals of AEROs, he added.