The state health department has initiated efforts to reactivate and strengthen a well-coordinated platform between government and civil society organisations/NGOs across all the 24 districts as part of its move to step up ground works for the effective management of Covid-19 pandemic ahead of the anticipated ‘Third Wave’.

Health department has named the initiative as Mission Kartavya under which every district is mandated to set up Go-CSO (government-civil society organisation) coordination committees on priority basis. The deputy commissioner has been directed to review the progress regularly and also address the shortcomings through different interventions by striking coordination with the state level committee (health department).

The health department is to be updated daily about GO-CSO’s progress.

A letter in this regard has been dispatched to all the districts of the state by the additional chief secretary of health department, Arun Kumar Singh. Details concerning the standard operating procedures under the mission have been mentioned in the letter.

“Covid second wave posed new challenges for us and therefore strategies are being made to prevent and respond to the emerging situation of a possible third wave. A more coordinated effort of CSOs (civil society organisations) and government is the need of the hour for which key directions have been issued to every district,” he said.

In Jharkhand, a mechanism for GO- CSO coordination was put in place, on the direction of Niti Aayog during the first wave of Covid-19 but later it was discontinued due to various reasons as a result of which government’s handling of the pandemic turned chaotic during the initial phase of the second wave, which led to the piling of cases, which eventually led to heavy mortalities.

Health department is now putting its act in place, way in advance to address the unforeseeable threat judiciously. “Mission Kartavya is an initiative to reactivate and strengthen GO-CSO coordination platforms in the state to concert the efforts of government and CSOs with a set of planned interventions to meet the demands arising from changing scenarios in the light of the impending third wave,” he said.

Under this mission, the state nodal agency of UNICEF will work closely with district nodal officers and mother CSOs identified by the district administration. At each district, administration and civil society organizations (GO-CSO) coordination committees will be set up to perform hosts of activities with an aim to track, trace and prevent the spread of the virus.

Detailing on some of the objectives, Singh said, “The key tasks will include interventions required for bringing down the impact of the virus on common people and the vulnerable sections including children, migrant workers, women headed families etc during the pandemic. Concert the efforts of CSOs and government for co-ordinated, quick, and effective response, taking help from civil society organizations and community-based organizations or agencies for emergency response, mobilising and pooling resources available with CSOs and government towards co-ordinated action, measure and monitor the progress on a regular basis and also document efforts and results achieved.”

The department has also drafted several ‘to-do’ things under this mission. “At district levels, district support centres (DSCs) will be established which will be further linked with block support centres and panchayat centres. The volunteers list of the district, block, panchayat and village will be available with the DSC. On the other hand, DSC will be linked with emergency services or helplines available at the district for carrying out co-ordinated works at the grassroot level,” informed another official. “This apart, activities like social mobilisation, creation of awareness, providing support to migrant workers and vulnerable families hit by Covid, identification of Covid orphans among a host of other activities will also be performed under this mission,” he added.