DC of Lakhimpur Jeevan B spoke exclusively to The Sentinel Assam

Sentinel Assam: Definitely tough times for every deputy commissioner at this point of time, how are you coping with the covid situation in Lakhimpur?

Jeevan B: Since COVID began in March, we have ramped up our health infrastructure. We almost have a capacity of around 250 beds in our isolation centres, 6 ventilators and almost 400 beds in the COVID care centres. We were screening people at the borders, all passengers coming from outside the states. Now we have also stepped up surveillance through the rapid antigen test in the marketplaces, containment areas, areas which are de-notified containment zones. Our emphasis is to catch cases early so that we can trace the contacts, test them and contain further spread of the virus. We have around 23 mobile teams for rapid testing, 3 teams are fixed for RT-PCR tests. Since Lakhimpur is more of a rural setting, there are not many places fortunately, we have about four urban local bodies and some prominent rural huts, around 18 to 20 of them. Our mobile teams go and do the testing. When we have a large congregation of people testing positive, we declare it as a containment zone or like we had few cases in Dhakuakhana market and we closed the market. This helps break the chain of transmission and helps contain the spread. That has been our strategy so far. Currently we had around 800 cases and fortunately almost 500 of them have recovered and we have around 300 active cases, unfortunately we had one case of COVID death, he had liver issues. He died even before reaching the hospital and on testing later, it turned out to be positive.

We have an ambulance with advanced life support facilities to transport any patient. Our healthcare facilities have been ramped up significantly.

We also have a Facebook page for any feedback from the patients. We have a dedicated COVID care call centre manned by four Health Department officials. If any COVID patient has any issue, they can get in touch with us through all these multiple ways and it helps us ensure that they get adequate care and if they have any issues, we can take care of it and quickly rectify those. We are also talking to the patients who have come from outside and who are under home quarantine. We are calling them, motivating them and explaining to them the significance of isolation. In case someone does not have enough room for isolation then we are getting in touch with the local Gaon Panchayat Presidents and arrangements have been made. The local people are helping us a lot to take care of people coming from outside.

There are only three areas which are a little difficult to reach. Otherwise pretty much the entire district has been covered optimally under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana Phase II. The ASHA workers have been doing a tremendous job. So, we had two rounds of community service program and I am amazed by the resilience and the willpower and the motivation that field officials and workers have displayed and time and again we make it a point to felicitate and appreciate their work. For the areas which are difficult to reach, we have another system, a parallel system of Gaon burhas (village headmen). So, the information is coming to us. We also have the emergency number 1077. Basically, the idea is to activate multiple channels of communication so that if one fails there are others for the people to reach out to the administration or the health department.

Sentinel Assam: Floods too has been causing a lot of misery. What is the situation right now? What about few critical embankments in certain areas like Bhimpara?

Jeevan B: In fact, we had unprecedented floods this time, the highest flood level since the last decade. There was considerable suffering so we tried our best to reach out to the people in terms of relief and related to the embankments, we did come across couple of vulnerable places like Bhimpara and couple of other areas under Lakhimpur circle, but fortunately there had been some work which are already done in those areas either through Water Resource Department or the convergence between Panchayat and Water Resource Department. So that happened in Lakhimpur district, we did manage to save the embankments this time and in fact the Water Resource Department and local peoples' joint efforts saved it except for one or two places like in Senimaraghat but our departments have done a good job till now. Several schemes have already been approved the work will be executed once flood waters recede. The water levels were quite high this time.

We have three gram panchayats and we had some issues this time in these areas like Ghunakhuti because the water levels were much beyond the danger level so did manage to provide them some relief, but there is more work which is needed to be done in terms of mitigation. In fact, we are picking up lot of mitigation works in the last couple of years. We have built around 120 raised platforms and shelters meant for basically supporting the animals and people also can take shelter. There is a requirement for more shelter which we have taken note of. We had piloted a unique initiative which is called community-based disaster risk reduction strategy for the community where the community itself takes the onus for the mitigation measure. Under this pilot project all the gaon panchayat presidents and secretaries have been trained. They have been taught where and how to identify raised platforms spots, where to set up toilets and drinking water taps so that during inundations these can be used. It took us about two years to finish all consultations, finalise the plans and idetify the spots. We will be able to implement it from this October once the floodwaters recede. I hope this should mitigate the problems of the people at least in terms of shelter, drinking water, access to toilets, shelter for livestock during floods. These are some of the areas which traditionally get inundated. Every year they get inundated because they are in the riverine areas between river channels.

We have another piloted a biological initiative, we have identified the area near the Dikrong river as well as in the inter areas where we are going to plant two plant species with very deep roots, they hold the soil tight. We have been discussing this with the commissioners of disaster management. If it succeeds then it might be taken up in a larger scale, so right now we have taken up only one area and needs 4 more months to see the results.

Sentinel Assam: What about implementation of central schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awaaz Yojana because there are certain areas like Silikhaguri where people still do not have proper housing facilties?

Jeevan B: In fact under the coming phase of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Gramin we 87,000 houses which might get sanctioned this year. In Silikhaguri those houses are already surveyed and are already in Phase III as in the next batch of 87,000 houses that I mentioned. We did another survey, identified all the gaps. Implementation will be started in a phased manner. Most of the beneficiaries will be covered in the coming phase.

Sentinel Assam: Let's hear about your plans, your vision for the people of your district.

Jeevan B: Lakhimpur basically is an agrarian economy. We have plans for agriculture, horticulture and fisheries. The idea is to build the local agrarian economy and further step up the value chain by establishing agro-business and establishing storage facilities and training people in the new technologies in agriculture, fisheries like biofloc, cage culture and ras fish farming. We are identifying people who are educated and already involved in these activities to give them a certificate course. We are also focusing on helping farmers involved in the farming and production of pineapple. Idea is to ramp up the agri economy in Lakhimpur, focus on farmers' training. I am happy to share with you that we have also regisered a milk company and the brand we are calling it Lakhimi. Maybe in a couple of months we will be able to launch it.

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