SYED AJAZ

Pulwama 20 April (KNS): District Adminstation Pulwama is using an android based "Nigrani " App for the Village Surveillance Teams ( VSTs) and containment committees , as a part of the ongoing intensive COVID-19 prevention drive. The App is used by the Village Surveillance Teams ( VSTs) which carry an extensive surveillance of a particular village throughout the District by filling the details in a sort of checklist module specially designed for COVID-19 related queries.
The details include the travel history of persons along with detailed description of quarantine ( Home/ hospital / Institutional), screening of persons by Health Department and respiratory symptoms of any resident.
It further records the percentage of people using masks ,incidence of social gatherings along with the COVID-19 consciousness among the people .

Earlier Village Surveillance Teams were constituted throughout the district which comprises of an ASHA Worker ,Anganwadi Worker ,Village Level Worker , Lumberdar for conducting extensive surveillance and screening in their respective areas .There are 347 village surveillance & containment committees , corresponding to the number of revenue villages in the district.

While reviewing the functioning of Village Surveillance Teams , District Magistrate Dr. Raghav Langer said that the app has been launched for prompt reporting of surveillance teams along with a proper evidence in a time bound manner.
He said this tool has proved effective in making these committees accountable and to use the power of field staff to develop an effective containment strategy .
He said that surveillance teams operate from a particular location by Geo tagging the photograph of the location which will automatically show the coordinates ,date and time of the photograph taken or geotagged. He said that for effective monitoring of Village Surveillance Teams , reports are connected to Dashboard which provides a daily progress report of their activities in a particular location.
He further added that this is a part of the efforts District Adminstation is unflinchingly doing for containing Community transmission of COVID-19 .
The app has been designed by NIC team Pulwama which has been working tirelessly and integrating the efforts of field functionaries by putting the Information Technology tools at their consumption in fighting against COVID-19.
While commenting on the use of "Nigrani" app , District Informatics Officer,Mr Asif Sidique , said that the situation cannot be overcome without use of technology; whereas on one hand Aarogya Setu app of GoI has been very effective in the fight against corona; on the other hand NIC team Pulwama in addition to " Nigrani " app has helped the administration in various IT enables tools like Talaash - disclosure of travel history ;Jazbaa - Registration of Volunteers and Ann Dhaan in registering NGOs for providing food to destitutes and labourers have played a pivotal role in the war against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier District Magistrate has issued an order for mandatory use of the said application by surveillance Team head while conducting survey in their respective areas.(KNS)