By SRELJ News Bureau
Surat, also known as the ‘diamond city’, is one of the most dynamic cities of India with one of the fastest growth rate due to immigration from various parts of Gujarat and other states of India. As one of the few major cities of India with a status of ODF++, Surat has been doing inspiring work while treading the journey of Swachhata. When the pandemic of Covid-19 emerged and became a global crisis and affected India and its cities, Surat has shown a similar spirit in protecting and serving its citizens better by developing and implementing a rapid crisis management plan which became a blueprint for the state government of Gujarat to follow.
Description automatically generated with clear objectives of reducing human to human transmission by breaking the chain of transmission concentrating on epidemiological triad (Agent-Host-Environment Factors), early detection of suspected cases and providing optimum care to the confirmed cases of COVID-19, SMC adopted three-pronged approach which they call “3-T Strategy” – Track, Test and Treat to fight against COVID-19.
Description automatically generated to identify and test all the suspects, SMC developed ‘SMC COVID-19 Tracker System’ within the span of 5 days, which includes a web portal and mobile application named “SMC COVID-19 Tracker” to track people who have abroad or inter-state travel history and persons who have come in direct contact with positive COVID-19 individual. Further, SMC has also started a helpline number 1800-123-800 where citizen can share details about travelers or suspects, verified by SMC team including health officials. The same app is also used to observe individuals under quarantine and contact them if any of them develop any symptoms.
Technology aside, SMC has keenly looked into the issue of waste management. Abiding to the special waste management advisory released by MoHUA, SMC has been collecting solid waste separately from all home quarantine households for which separate D2D collections vehicles are deployed and the waste is processed as per guidelines of Biomedical Waste Management. They are paying special attention that the routine solid waste collection, transportation and disposal activities along with cleaning and scrapping are carried out efficiently to keep the city clean.
