Local Struggles in a Global Pandemic
Exactly one year ago, I was enrolled in Prof. Clancy Martin’s course on ‘Morality and Good Life’ when I was pursuing the Young India Fellowship from Ashoka University. After every class, he would ask us to construct a scenario where there is a potential moral dilemma and decide what we would do in that case. I was always quick to decide my plan of action for every scenario, thereby solving the moral dilemma for myself very easily. Little did I know that it seems very straight forward only in thoughts but is extremely complicated when faced in real life. This became much clearer at the time of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, especially, while working with the district administration as a Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associate (CMGGA) in Haryana.
When the lockdown was announced by the Hon’ble Prime Minister on 24th March 2020, I was in Yamuna Nagar (YNR), my station of posting. Although we had received permission to work from home, I decided to stay back in the district to help the administration in planning the logistics for COVID 19. Since then, I have been heavily involved in multiple things — collecting databases of shops which provide home-delivery of goods, figuring out the logistics of cooked food distribution to the migrant population, streamlining the approval of movement passes, shelter camp logistics etc. During the last eight weeks, I have faced multiple ‘moral dilemmas’ that have given me a new lens to look at the world and think of innovative ways to handle complex situations. I would like to share two such stories here.
‘Andar se koi bahar na jaa sake, bahar se koi andar na aa sake’
The purpose of the lockdown is to break the chain of transmission of the virus, for which movement of people and goods has to be strictly controlled and monitored. The Ministry of Home Affairs invoked Section 6 (2) (i) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 thereby restricting residents’ movement outside of their homes and ordered the closure of all commercial establishments except those considered as essential goods and services. To facilitate the movement of residents for emergencies, the Government of Haryana started issuing movement passes through its online G2C service portal saralharyana.gov.in from 26th March 2020 onwards.
Given the penetration and ease-of-use of the portal, we had assumed to receive a large number of applications and we were right — we received over 600 applications on the first day itself, even without any awareness activity. With so much traffic pouring on the portal, it would have been challenging for a high-ranking officer to manage the portal individually, due to the influx of other responsibilities. Nor the job could have been outsourced to any clerical staff due to high chances of it then being converted to an illegal marketplace. Keeping these things in mind, respected Deputy Commissioner (DC) YNR, Sh Mukul Kumar (IAS) entrusted me and another officer with the complete responsibility of streamlining the processing of movement passes. This news travelled at lightning speed to all the offices and our phones got flooded with texts and calls from very high-ranking officers and even some of the ‘royal’ families, some of them we couldn’t even say no to, and hence raising the ‘moral dilemma’. People started lining up outside my office to request for passes or to submit their grievances. One of the senior officers also joked once: “Naman, you are the most powerful person in the district currently”.
After a few hours of this unprecedented routine, two things became clear to us — a) we needed a dedicated team to handle the passes as the numbers were exponentially increasing and b) the approvals can’t be done from the office, as people would line up in the office to get the applications approved. Therefore, I assembled a team of three persons with whom I have worked in the past and could place full faith in. They were trained, provided with a guideline and asked to process the applications from their home. Their identity was not revealed to anyone, to avoid any pressure on them. All the communication to them was only routed through us and they were continuously monitored to keep a check on their speed and quality. We made sure that the citizen is told the reason in case of rejection, so as to maintain full transparency between the citizens and the Government. As a result of this exercise, the current average processing time of the applications is just 40 minutes which would, in most cases, be lower than the time taken to arrange for a referral, thereby minimising the possibility of a ‘moral dilemma’.
The ‘Khichdi Model’
The most affected group during the COVID-19 pandemic has been that of daily-wagers, who lost their livelihoods given the lockdown. With little to no savings, they couldn’t sustain themselves during the lockdown period, and to tend to their needs, the Red Cross society sprung to action. In Yamuna Nagar, over 40 organisations and 300 volunteers collaborated with the Red Cross Society to distribute 10,000+ food packets per day, in the first week of lockdown.
During one of my conversations with the volunteers, it came to my notice that the number of food packets distributed is rapidly increasing day by day — it had reached 29,000 in mid-April. Had this trend continued, the social organisations would soon exhaust their funds and thus, wouldn’t have been able to support the administration (which would then have to set up the entire food distribution network from scratch, which was the least preferable option).
Anecdotal evidence suggested that there was duplicity in food distribution, with different NGOs distributing food to the same people in addition to self-sufficient citizens also demanding dry ration and cooked food. The obvious need to reduce the number of food packets raised a complex moral dilemma:
- On what objective criteria can the Administration differentiate between the needy and the self-sufficient during this pandemic? Anecdotal evidence suggested that there were middle-class families who could be assumed to be self-sufficient but were not.
- Subjective criteria would be unfair and arbitrary.
Hence, the administration started brainstorming on possible interventions. One senior officer suggested that the numbers are increasing because NGOs are distributing delicacies like poori-chole, Kadhi chawal, Matar paneer etc. This was when the ‘Khichdi Model’ was conceptualised — under which, only simple yet fulfilling meals like vegetable Khichdi, Dalia, roti-achar etc are distributed by the NGOs/Administration. The assumption behind this is that if such simple meals are distributed, it will disincentivize people who can sustain themselves, from unnecessarily demanding food from the NGOs/Administration, while ensuring access to nutritious food for the needy.
This model was piloted in the Bilaspur subdivision of Yamuna Nagar by the respected Sub Divisional Magistrate, Bilaspur and within a few days, the demand for food packets fell by 75%. This model has now been expanded to the main city area, which is where the majority of our food distribution is concentrated. We are projecting a reduced food demand of 50% in the city due to this intervention, which would mean that NGOs can now support us for twice the period of time with the same resources. This ‘Khichdi Model’ would completely eliminate the need to establish any objective or subjective criteria to identify the target population, thereby kicking the moral dilemma out of the equation.
Such stories are at the core of how the District Administration handles complex situations. Being a part of these as a CMGGA has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life. It has made me realise how we often get so engrossed in the macro picture — the global statistics, the national testing rate, the state positive patients’ count and so forth — that we rarely observe the efforts put in by our local administrations and their unique struggles. While it is good to have a bird’s eye view, one can truly judge the performance of the government only by becoming more cognizant of these ‘local struggles in a global pandemic.’
