Covid second wave doubles traffic police’s role in Noida

Noida: Traffic police officials have been doing a dual role for the past two months in Gautam Budh Nagar

Noida: Traffic police officials have been doing a dual role for the past two months in Gautam Budh Nagar. Besides regulating the traffic, they have been helping family members of Covid-19 patients in arranging oxygen cylinders and ambulances.

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For instance, the traffic control room on Thursday received a call from Mohit Rana, a resident of Sector 22, that his father was in need of an oxygen concentrator at home. The traffic police verified the request and swiftly arranged an oxygen concentrator for him. “First, I searched for an oxygen concentrator in the market but it was not available. I then contacted the traffic police who provided the concentrator with a security deposit of ₹1000,” Rana said.

Ganesh Saha, deputy commissioner of police (traffic), GB Nagar, said that in the last few months the control room saw a decline in the routine traffic-related calls. “Due to the second wave of the pandemic, people started facing new problems. They needed oxygen cylinders and ambulances, among other things. There are also some people who lost jobs and faced problems in arranging food. We then decided to cater to these needs through our control room,” he said.

Saha said that the control room number – 9971009001 – which earlier responded to only traffic-related calls, started helping people affected by Covid-19. “As we receive calls from people, we send our team to help them. We have associated with some NGOs who help us in this initiative,” Saha said.

Police on Wednesday provided food to about 100 low-income families in Surajpur, the officials said.

Omveer Singh, a head constable at the traffic control room, said that the control room randomly calls residents and asks if they or someone in their neighbourhood need any help. “A few days ago, we received a call from an ice-cream vendor. He said that his business is badly affected due to the lockdown and he was unable to arrange food. We immediately sent a team and helped him,” Singh said.

The officials said that the Rotary Club also helped them in this initiative.

Naveen Kumar Aggarwal, president, Rotary Club Noida, said that the club is running a kitchen for about two months and has provided food to 250 Covid patients living alone. “Our primary goal during the second wave was to provide blood and plasma to people. But we helped people arrange food supplies in this difficult times,” he said.