VIJAYAWADA: With the lockdown announced to contain the outbreak of COVID-19 bringing most of the activities to a grinding halt, the State government has come up with a unique way to ensure that essential services and service providers are not affected.
An emergency pass (e-pass) issuance system has been put in place to give passes to those from private establishments engaged in the production or supply of essential goods or services. The State government has identified 23 types of industries as essential ones and exempted them from lockdown. Twenty per cent of employees of such industries are permitted to work.
“All the commodities being supplied till now are those available in our warehouses or godowns. But, what will happen after the available stocks are over? So, keeping the future demands in mind, we wanted to develop a system to ensure that there are no issues in the supply chain of essential goods and services like manufacturing, packaging and transportation. With the Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s instructions, we came up with e-pass system in which an organisation, which is providing essential services and goods, can get a pass to freely go about their work,” Himanshu Shukla, the special officer (essential service) for containment of covid-19 outbreak, told TNIE.
As of Thursday afternoon, over 3,000 applications for e-passes were received at the state command control centre to contain covid-19 outbreak, out of which about 1,700 were approved.“We are approving the passes after a thorough security authentication. Though other States are also issuing passes manually, we are in the forefront as our e-passes have three-tier security authentication and the applicants don’t need to come to government offices for getting the passes,” Shukla noted.
The e-pass portal was developed in a record 24 hours on Tuesday. The officials are approving the passes within six hours of filing the application and are working to bring it down to three hours.The officials are of the view that if other States emulate the e-pass system, it would streamline the entire supply chain management of essential commodities as certain goods need interstate transportation. “We also don’t know the trajectory of the pandemic and till when the restrictions would be in place if outbreak continues. So, unification of supply chain management is essential during crisis,” another official observed.
The State command control room also monitors the stocks of essential commodities on a daily basis and redresses related public grievances registered on 1092, a 24x7 helpline. As of now, sufficient stocks are available in the State for at least one week, the officials said. Sourcing of commodities is also being done strategically to make sure there is no shortfall of commodities such as vegetable, dairy products, medicines, eggs, rice, pulses and others. “The grievances are being addressed within two hours,” the officials added. An average 2,500 to 3,000 grievances a day are received at 1092.
Emergency passes
3,000
applications received at the state command control centre for e-passes
1,700
applications approved
23
types of industries exempted from lockdown
20%
of employees of exempted industries are permitted to work
The e-pass portal was developed in a record 24 hours
How can you apply?
e-passes can be applied by visiting: www.spandana.ap.gov.in or https://gramaward sachivalayam.ap.gov.in/ CVPASSAPP/CV/CVOrganization Registration