Disaster management
DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Disaster management
September 11, 2022
Rural Area
The smallest unit within a Panchayat System is a ward. From each ward, an individual is elected by the people in the Panchayat through the Panchayat elections and is known as “Ward Member”.
The ward members from various Wards report to a Panchayat Committee. The Panchayat committee also has appointed members along with the elected members. The Panchayat Committee has a President (Elected Member) and Secretary(government appointed member) and various standing committees (eg: Standing Committee on health, welfare, finance).It is the Local Self Governing body within a community. 33% of all government funds are spent through the Panchayat Committees. An average Panchayat gets around 2 Crores of funding per annun.
Urban Areas
The Municipalities (Municipals Councils/Nagar Palika/Nagar Palika Parishad ) and Corporations (Municipal Corporations) are the local government in India that administer urban areas with a population of more than 25 thousand and more than 10 lakhs respectively. Some states in India have City Councils(Nagar-Panchayat) as an additional division. The area administered by a municipality or corporation is divided into territorial constituencies known as wards.
Health system
The public-health care system in India is based on a three-tiered health-care system to provide preventive and curative health care in rural and urban areas. It consists of sub-centres, primary health centres and community health centres.
Let us take a look at the public health care system of Kerala. The existing healthcare structure in Kerala is a well structured and decentralized system that works in collaboration with other departments at various levels of hierarchy.
Revenue system
In pre-independent India, there was one person who was in charge of collecting tax revenues from the public. This person was the “Collector” in the “Revenue” Department.
The taxation system in India is such that the taxes are levied by the Central Government and the State Governments. Certain minor taxes are collected by the local authorities too.
The Revenue system functions alongside the Local Self Governments.
Law enforcement:The constitution of India delegates the maintenance of law and order primarily to the states and territories. All senior officers in the state police forces and federal agencies are members of the Indian Police Service (IPS)
Consider the example of Kerala to understand the law enforcement system within a state. Kerala State Police is the law enforcement agency for the state of Kerala with its headquarters at Thiruvananthapuram
ACTIVATION OF THESE TREATMENT CENTRES:
There are 3 Phases to the way COVID-19 is treated.
Phase 1 is when a panchayat only has 3 or less than 3 cases in a population of 10,000. During this phase, all the COVID-19 patients are treated in the Apex Centres.
Phase 2 is when any panchayat starts to have more than 3 cases in a population of 10,000. Then, the SLTCs are activated. All the mild and moderate cases will be treated in the SLTCs while only the critically ill will be sent to the Apex Centres.
Phase 3 is when a Panchayat starts to have more than 10 cases in a population of 10,000. Then, FLTCs are activated to treat the asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients. The SLTCs continue to treat the moderately symptomatic patients and Apex Centres only treat the most severely ill.
When number of cases still goes up, the panchayat boundaries of such Hotspots are sealed to contain the virus.
Vaccines:A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins, or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as a threat, destroy it, and to further recognize and destroy any of the microorganisms associated with that agent that it may encounter in the future.
General Advice
Always wear a mask in public places.
Limit your movement. The lesser people you interact closely with, the less likely you and the people around you are to being sick.
Encourage repeated hand washing. Carry a hand sanitizer and use it wherever soap and water are not available. Wash your hands as soon as you get home. Wash your hands or sanitize before you touch your eye, nose or mouth.
Maintain social distancing. Limit contact even while running errands. For example, at the grocery store, do not touch the items unnecessarily. Maintain 1-meter distance from anyone and avoided touching common surfaces like cash counter etc.
Respiratory hygiene and cough etiquettes must be observed by all.
Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze.
Establish a system to ensure proper disposal of masks/tissue papers.
