The National Commission for Women (NCW) recently presented the ‘Covid Women Warrior’ award to four women IPS officers from Maharashtra. The award was given in an event which marked the 29th Foundation Day of the NCW, on 31 January 2021.
The four who have conferred the award for their meticulous service during the pandemic are Aarti Singh, Commissioner of Police Amravati, Mokshada Patil, Aurangabad (Rural) SP, Tejaswi Satpute, Solapur SP, and Niyati Thaker Dave, DCP (Mumbai Special Branch-II).
Covid-19 pandemic came in as a havoc to the nation and during such unprecedented times, many police officers transformed themselves into a warrior, serving beyond their duties. Among such warriors are these lady officers from Maharashtra who did not even think twice while going all out to help the terrified people.
In our ongoing series on India’s `corona warriors’, we are today focusing on Ms. Niyati Thaker Dave and the exemplary work done by her.
LEADING COVID OPERATION IN DHARAVI
While the first positive case was registered in down south of the country (Kerala), Maharashtra soon the list of most affected states. Due to high population in cities like Mumbai, people were finding it difficult to deal with the situation.
At the time, Ms Dave was heading the Covid operation in Dharavi, arguably the biggest settlement slum of Asia and situated bang in the middle of Mumbai. Dharavi covers 2.1 square kilometer area, providing shelter to whopping eight lakh residents. It was indeed a huge task for the officers to make people of Dharavi aware about the situation and to take urgent precautionary measures against the virus.
With an endless number of lanes in the slum, it was next to impossible for the police officers to keep a track of each and every resident. Hence, by understanding the ground reality of the slum, Ms. Dave adapted a new strategy to tackle the issues they were facing.
MAKING MULTI-LINGUAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
Initially when people were not listening to the guide lines of the health department, Ms. Dave approached the community leaders and started making announcements in Hindi and Marathi. This mass awareness drive was further increased by including local Tamil, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Christian and Muslim association and leaders in the drive.
Apart from announcements, Ms. Dave also assigned volunteers in each chawl and building in Dharavi to reach out to the residents and spread awareness about the do’s and don’ts. As an estimate of 1.5 lakh people were in the containment zones in Dharavi, the police ensured to provide food and sanitization material to them. Teams of doctors were also called in in the sprawling settlement.
Making arrangement for adequate food, Ms. Dave initiated 20 to 25 community kitchens in the area so that people were no left hungry. She also roped in various NGOs to distribute food and other essentials to the people.
Dharavi being a highly populated slum, currently hosts only 14 active cases of Covid 19. A large part of the credit for the remarkable turnaround, of course, goes to IPS officer Niyati Dave.
