Karnataka Covid war room wins Centre’s award for use of tech

Bengaluru: Karnataka’s Covid-19 war room has been awarded the Centre’s e-governance ‘jury’ award for use of Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) in managing the pandemic.

The award was received by IAS officer Munish Moudgil, the brain behind the Karnataka State Covid-19 War Room.

Moudgil told TOI: “The Karnataka government realised from day one that we need to have a technology-enabled response. Our role is to support the government and all other stakeholders. We provide an integrated support system to enable people working in the field, who are the real heroes, to be more efficient.”

Stating that Karnataka was probably the only state with an app for contact tracing aside from seven to eight other applications that work together seamlessly to enable this, he said the war room played a critical role in battling Covid-19.

On Friday, state health minister K Sudhakar, while congratulating Moudgil, said: “...Be it the gamut of in-house mobile applications or the the fully equipped war room, Karnataka’s tech-driven Covid management has been a model to the entire country.”