District administrations and civic bodies are trying out new initiatives, from public appeals to using every day items to enforce social distancing, to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) on Saturday issued a public appeal to people to come forward on their own to share details about anyone having symptoms of Covid-19 or having come from other districts or states.

“Our staff as part of surveillance duty are visiting house to house collating information on those persons who have come from other districts or states,” said JNAC special officer Krishna Kumar. “We have the data of those persons with overseas travel history, but we would like to have information about even those persons who had come to the city from other states before the countrywide lockdown was imposed.”

He said there have been instances when people have tried to hide information about family members who have come from outside.

“To encourage them to behave in a responsible manner we have issued an appeal of felicitating those persons who turn up on their own admitting about their travel history,” Kumar said.

The JNAC distributed pamphlets through their surveillance team members in different localities requesting people to act as responsible citizens (read come forward) and be felicitated.

“We are yet to decide on what we would give as felicitation. It will be a token gesture to encourage such persons for behaving as responsible citizens and for this reason we have named it as Zimmedar Nagarik Abhiyan,” said JNAC city manager Ravi Bharati.

“We want people to understand about the gravity of the situation and the mess they would be putting their family into by hiding their travel history. We have nearly 100 members who have visited house to house seeking information and also distributing the pamphlets about Covid-19 threats and necessity of informing about any person with travel history,” Bharati added.

Similar surveillance teams have been pressed into service in other urban areas like Mango and Jugsalai and also in different blocks using the help of anganwadi sevikas and sahiyas.

The West Singhbhum district administration has started using used cycle tyres to enforce social distancing during distribution of meals to the needy from vans in the rural hinterlands.

“There are seven such food vans and all carry used cycle tyres which are used as a social distance circle for people to stand in a queue keeping a safe distance during food distribution,” said West Singhbhum deputy development commissioner (DDC) Aditya Ranjan.

The West Singhbhum administration also conducted a mock drill at the district's only Covid-19 dedicated hospital in Chakradharpur.

“We are using the facility at South Eastern Railway Hospital in Chakradharpur as a dedicated Covid-19 hospital. It has 60 beds and six ICU beds,” DDC Ranjan said. “All protocols for Covid-19 cases at the hospital including 3km-radius containment plans were tested during the mock drill and were found to be satisfactory.”