Numerous people are found guilty of any number of rule violations every day, for which they are required to pay fines as punishment. This results in the accumulation of lakhs of rupees worth of fines in any district, but the amount automatically goes to the government treasury.
However, the District Collector of East Siang in Arunachal Pradesh, Dr. Kinny Singh came up with a brilliant way to utilize the fines collected and channel them to a greater cause. In an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds, the officer talked about her ‘Covid care banks’ and other strategies to accelerate Covid vaccination in her region.
UTILIZING FINES
The state government authorized the District Collector to make use of the collected fines as she had requested for the same during the first wave itself.
“The situation was very dynamic and since we are working in remote areas, the problems needed dynamic solutions. Therefore, we requested for authorization which was done in the beginning of this wave,” Dr. Singh told Indian Masterminds.
Since Covid regulations could not be broken, the officer and her team were able to collect Rs 4.5 lakhs in fines and started using them to help out people, facing all the discrepancies. However, soon people understood the importance of the task and supported the administration.
COVID CARE BANKS
In the midst of the second wave, Dr. Singh reported that the virus had spread its roots in rural areas – a place where major skepticism existed regarding Covid appropriate behavior.
People were mostly mildly symptomatic but their pathology was worsening in home isolation. The administration wanted to prevent mortality in rural areas. Just then, she received a report stating that there were no thermomters or oxymeters as people were reluctant to buy these things, often due to financial reasons.
“Therefore, we purchased these items from the fines amount and kept it at the level of circle officer so that people could borrow that equipment for monitoring their health, making it easy for their referral to healthcare facilities in case of requirement,” said Dr Singh.
Dr. Singh also launched Covid care banks. These were set up at eight places in the district and received good feedback from people. Through this, they could also identify cases that required hospitalization and needed to be removed from remote areas.
FREE RICE DISTRIBUTION FOR THE VACCINATED ONES
In another way, the officer was successfully able to motivate people in the remote areas to get their vaccination done. East Siang holds 90% capacity of vaccinated individuals regarding the first dose. But soon, she realized that the turnout was diminishing slowly and observed that around 3000-4000 people were still left to get their vaccine.
She explained, “These people were hesitant to come forward to get vaccinated and had doubts in their mind. We tried every means and strategy we could to coax them but in vain. That’s when we thought of this scheme that could benefit both the parties,” Dr. Singh told Indian Masterminds.
Since rice is a staple food, she brought out a scheme limited to this week only wherein she and her team decided to distribute 10 kilograms of rice per person to anybody who comes to get their first dose of the Covid vaccine.
“I am purchasing the rice from the supply department in subsidized rate and the funding is done from the fine amount only,” she added.
The basic objective of the officer and her team is to prevent mortality which seems to be successful owing to zero mortality cases here. The Covid situation in East Siang is fairly under control. The cases remain more or less in the same number, ranging from 150-170. The highest number of cases received in a day till now has been 23.
Furthermore, Dr. Singh added that this couldn’t have been possible without the efforts of her team who implemented everything that she envisioned for the district.
