E-Paper
After ban on MNREGA work, MP villagers contain Covid-19 spread in 13k panchayats
Not only Sidhi panchayat, but more than 13000 village panchayats contained the infection after a ban on MNREGA work.
In Sidhi village panchayat of Madhya Pradesh’s Shahdol district, where 11 people tested positive for Covid-19 in April, strict measures were taken by residents to contain the spread after the state government banned work under MNREGA, officials said.
Shahdol chief executive officer Mehtab Singh said, “After a ban on MNREGA, people felt the burn and came out with steps to fight against Corona. Villagers won the battle against the virus with self-discipline and fine on villagers for violation of Covid-19 protocol.”
Within a month and a half, the village panchayat was declared Covid-19 free. Not only Sidhi panchayat, but more than 13000 village panchayats contained the infection after a ban on MNREGA work.
People were not allowed to come out of their houses, all evening chaupals were dismissed, children were banned from playing outside while only two people were allowed to go out to purchase items from the shops for 740 families of the village panchayat.
The state government divided more than 23,000 village panchayats into three parts - red zones, with more than five Covid-19 positive cases; Orange zone, having 1-5 positive cases; and green zone, with zero cases - after a surge in Covid-19 cases. The government banned MNREGA work in red zones to contain the infection, said an official.
In April, 13,500 village panchayats were declared as red zone and 6,000 under the orange zone. Now, about 3,000 villages are under the orange zone and 130 under the red zone.
In the second wave, rural Madhya Pradesh was badly affected and up to 60% Covid-19 positive cases in a day were reported from villages. In many villages, people died in suspicious circumstances without any tests. Crematoriums and graveyards were flooded with bodies to an extent that in many village panchayats people banned cremation.
In Seoni malwa block of Hoshangabad district, which is located on the bank of Narmada river, villagers claimed that cremation of bodies increased pollution in the river. “We had never seen so many cremations in the village. People from the neighbouring villages were coming to cremate the bodies on the bank of the river so we decided to ban cremations as a large number of fish were getting killed in the river,” said Ramesh Markam, a resident of Bhiladiya village of the district.
Now, the number of Covid-19 positive cases are on the decline and has even dropped to zero in many villages, he added.
The state government said early detection and self-disciplined of people from rural Madhya Pradesh helped in containing the spread of Covid-19.
Panchayat and rural development department principal secretary Umakant Umrao said, “Unlike urban population, seriousness and self-discipline of people in the villages of MP helped in curbing the infection.
Village panchayat officials, Aganwadi and ASHA workers conducted a survey in March and identified more than 80,000 suspects in rural MP. “We established at least 14,000 Covid-19 care centres and quarantine centres for infected people. Our strategy and the effort of villagers worked and Covid-19 infection was curbed to a great extent,” he added.
However, an activist, who accepts a decrease in positive cases, demanded a social audit on deaths and positivity rate in rural Madhya Pradesh.
Ekta Parishad’s state general secretary Rann Singh Parmar said, “The positive cases have been reduced but the state government shouldn’t forget the suspicious deaths of so many people in rural areas. In rural MP, many people, who were suffering from many symptoms of Covid-19, died without test and treatment in April and May when the second wave hit the country but neither the villagers nor the administration knows the reason behind these deaths. A social audit should be done across all 23,000 village panchayats to know the reality.”
(With inputs from Jitendra Verma from Hoshangabad)
