Details

Created: 11 April 2020

NEW DELHI: With an aim to address the issues faced by the residents of Jammu and Kashmir living in different parts of the country, a 24X7 Helpline Center was established at J&K Resident Commission Office, New Delhi following the lockdown due to Coronavirus pandemic. The staff engaged with the helpline center is working tirelessly for last 14 days to reduce the hardships of the J&K students, business persons, labourers as well as patients who are currently out of J&K.

Helpline is engaged with local administrations of more than 18 states in rendering all possible help in the form of cooked food, dry ration, medicines, vegetables as well temporary accommodation where ever required.  It is also pertinent to mention that almost all the district administrations have been very prompt and responsive in their actions and are making sure that all the issues are resolved on war front.

The helpline center is working 24X7 by listening and noting down the queries, calls, grievances and suggestions concerning labourers, business persons, students, their parents as well as close relatives and even patients. The center is being run by a team of Resident Commission Office – New Delhi under the guidance of Principal Resident Commissioner, Dheeraj Gupta and is being ably supported by a strong team of seven Liaison Officers (LOs).

As per the process, the helpline team members receive queries / calls from the students, patients, business persons, workers, laborers and then pass these on to the Liaison Officer of the respective region. The LO in turn immediately gets in touch with the caller, listens to the problem and then gets that resolved as per its merit. Where ever it is required, the help is arranged in coordination with the local administration of the respective region.

As far as the queries of students are concerned, during last 14 days, the LOs have handled more than 250 queries from 50 locations across India rendering help to 800 students.

The LOs have very promptly established contacts with all the callers and have been able to provide them timely help while coordinating actively with the local administrations of the respective locations including Collectorate Offices, Food & Supplies Departments, Police administrations and Banks in some cases. All the queries have been adequately closed post ensuring complete follow up and after confirmation from the caller that his/her issue has been resolved.

The top few location with high number of queries  have been Chandigarh, Mohali, Ropar, Bhopal, Kota, Jaipur, Pune, Bangaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Dehradun. As far as the queries of labourers, workers, business persons and patients are concerned, during last 14 days, the Helpline Team have handled more than 1000 queries from 30 locations rendering help to 2500 persons.

In case of labourers in Himachal Pradesh, the Liaison Officer - Chandigarh helped them to get accommodated in schools and Panchayat Ghars. Many of them are being served cooked food on daily basis from local NGOs and government facilities. In some of cases of patients stuck in Mumbai and Delhi, LOs  helped them to accommodate in guest houses on temporary basis. Many patients who live in J&K and dependent on life saving drugs were helped with transport of those drugs through air-cargo or other transport facilities. Liaison Officer Mumbai, also facilitated shipment of 20000 masks from Mumbai to Srinagar for SKIMS.