COVID-19: BBMP launches portal for Bengaluru citizens to become booth-level volunteers

Coronavirus

People can log into blcares.in website to register for booth-level volunteering.

TNM Staff

Representation photo

Bengaluru's civic body, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), along with several NGOs, on Friday launched a portal blcares.in where residents of the city can sign up to become volunteers for the booth-level COVID-19 management committees. Spearheaded by various civil society and advocacy organisations including Janaagraha, Naavu Bharatiyaru, Reap Benefit, Sensing Local Foundation, Citizens for Bengaluru, Slum mahila Sanghatane and Hasiru Dala, the booth-level committees aim to decentralise operations related to COVID-19.  What will volunteers do?    Residents of the city can sign up to become volunteers of these committees at their respective booths. The training of volunteers will be conducted by the NGOs working with BBMP. The volunteers will have to identify people in high-risk categories in their respective booths including senior citizens, pregnant women, people with comorbidities. They will conduct door-to-door surveys and create a pool of resources.  ಕೋವಿಡ್19 ಸೋಂಕು ನಿಯಂತ್ರಿಸಲು ಬೂತ್ ಮಟ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಪರಿಣಾಮಕಾರಿಯಾಗಿ ಸರ್ವೇ ನಡೆಸಲು ನಗರದ ಸಂಘ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಗಳ ಸಹಯೋಗದಲ್ಲಿ https://t.co/fB77JkV2NH ಜಾಲತಾಣಕ್ಕೆ ಗೌರವಾನ್ವಿತ @BBMP_MAYOR ಚಾಲನೆ ನೀಡಿದರು. ಬೂತ್ ಮಟ್ಟದ ತಂಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾರ್ಯನಿರ್ವಹಿಸಲು ಇಚ್ಛಿಸುವವರು https://t.co/fB77JkV2NH ಗೆ ಭೇಟಿ ನೀಡಿ ಸ್ವಯಂಸೇವಕರಾಗಬಹುದು. pic.twitter.com/b1rtN2GSoH — N. Manjunatha Prasad,IAS (@BBMPCOMM) August 14, 2020 "Some booths may have slums, where people cannot afford to maintain physical distance. Volunteers will identify if there are people with breathing difficulties or those who have Influenza-Like Illness and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness. They will determine whether a positive patient within the booth needs to be taken to a COVID Care Centre, or a COVID-19 hospital, or whether they will remain in home isolation," said Srinivas Alavalli, a member of Janaagraha.  He maintains that managing the cases at booth-level would make it easier to ensure that all patients receive necessary care. "Even if people from high-risk categories have illnesses other than COVID-19, the volunteers will help them. There are around 1000 to 1500 people in each booth and decentralised management will definitely make the job easier," he added.  BBMP officials said that having booth-level volunteers can help reduce the stigma attached to COVID-19 patients as those who will be contacting patients or their neighbours will be a person from the same locality. "They will be essentially neighbours. So we are hoping the stigma will be reduced," Manjunath Prasad, BBMP Commissioner said.  The booth-level teams will also help BBMP in tracing contacts of COVID-19 patients within their respective booths. In July, when the number of cases began increasing drastically in Bengaluru, the BBMP stopped tracing primary and secondary contacts as they did not have adequate manpower. The existing personnel were overwhelmed with work. "These booth-level committees will have health officers, booth-level BBMP officers and also citizen volunteers. This will ensure that both bureaucratic and field work are streamlined," Manjunath Prasad added.  How to register to become a volunteer You can visit the website blcares.in and this will directly lead you to the dashboard. As soon as you open the website, it will ask your permission to use your current location. You can select that option or manually enter the location. Once you have selected you location, you can see a red pin on the map on the website. If you click on that, a drop down menu will appear on your right hand side. This will contain your booth number and a button which says "volunteer". Once you click on it, it  will take you to a page, which has a basic form in both Kannada and English. You will have to fill this form and attach any government-issued identity proof like Aadhaar card, voter ID or passport.  For people who do not know how to use the internet, the BBMP is sending out PDFs of the forms on WhatsApp. People can also go to their local ward office, pick up a form, fill it and submit it with an attested photocopy of their ID proof.  So far, there are 5000 volunteers. The BBMP is hoping for more. "We will release data next week on which booths have enough volunteers and which booths need more," Srinivas Alavalli said. 

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