PANATHADY (KASARGOD): A couple of tin sheets and one asbestos sheet tied to arecanut logs make up the bus waiting shed opposite the Poodamkalladukkam Scheduled Tribe Colony on the Kanhangad-Chemberi state highway in Panathady panchayat.
The sheets barely keep the heavy midday rain pounding the hill panchayat out. Two pieces of a broken concrete electric post are used as benches inside.
Two young men -- Pavi Shankar (26), a civil engineer, and Akhil S Nair (19), who is preparing for engineering entrance exams -- have been sitting in the shed for the past four hours. By noon, they had emptied a packet of Marie biscuit and a bottle of water. "Our shift started at 8 am and we have one more hour to go," said Shankar.
For the past eight days, the youths have been keeping a close watch on the colony, a covid containment zone with 35 houses and 58 active cases. Shankar and Nair have to ensure no one from outside enters the colony or anyone from inside leaves the place. "But we also have to deliver whatever the residents ask for -- be it medicine or food," said Nair.
Around 200 metres away is the fair price shop of Panathady. Two Kudumbashree workers -- Yamuna Joshy (46) and Rajani Ratnakaran (34) -- are standing guard there. They are ensuring there is no crowding in front of the shop.
When there is no rush, visit houses of covid positive patients to enquire about them and deliver medicines. Sometimes, they shell out money from their pocket to get medicines from the Taluk Hospital at Poodamkallu, 10 km away.
Yamuna, Rajani, Nair, and Shankar are part of a network of 135 volunteers called the Rapid Response Team. "They are shouldering a major share of our responsibility to control COVID in our panchayat," Jose Abraham, the panchayat's assistant secretary.
Panathady -- bordering Karnataka -- is the grip of covid, with at least three colonies of Scheduled Tribes, declared as containment zones. It has 329 active cases of covid, and since January, around 1,000 persons have tested positive for the virus. "This week, we saw three deaths," he said.
But there is little panic in Panathady. The panchayat members, who fought a bitter election in November 2020, have come together to run a well-oiled outreach machine -- from effectively deploying volunteers to running a domiciliary care centre (DCC) for asymptomatic patients and community kitchen, and delivering food and medicines at home.
"We have selected five to eight volunteers from each ward, most of them are graduates," said Sajini Mol B, CPM's panchayat member. Twenty-three volunteers are posted at eight banks, five ration shops, at the three containment zones, and Chemberi check post bordering Karnataka, she said.
Community kitchen and care centre
COVID cases started rising in the panchayat in the first week of May when seven tribes persons tested positive for covid at Kappithottam colony in Ariprode ward. "By the second week, there were 35 cases in the colony," said James KJ, Congress member of Ariprode ward.
As per government guidelines, an area with more than 30 cases should be declared a containment zone.
James moved all the positive persons to a few houses and their relatives to houses free of covid in the same colony. "This helped us keep the residents in the colony itself and yet control the spread of the virus," he said.
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But the cases started rising in the rest of Panathady. On May 12, the panchayat started a domiciliary care centre (DCC) at the Government Higher Secondary School at Balanthode. The food for the asymptomatic patients was delivered from the People's Restaurant in Panathur, 8km away.
People's Restaurant is a people-government initiative to ensure no one goes hungry in the state. Those who cannot afford are given food free of cost and others can get meals at Rs 20. The state now has 1,017 People's Restaurants.
"But patients complained about the quality and the quantity of food," said panchayat assistant secretary Abraham, who is also the nodal officer of the DCC. So the panchayat president Prasanna Prasad of the CPM proposed to start a community kitchen in the school.
"As per government direction, we don't have to set up a community kitchen if there is a People's Restaurant nearby. But the panchayat members thought otherwise," said Abraham.
The panchayat members opened the community kitchen on May 15 and decided to serve food four times a day to the 70-odd inmates of the domiciliary care centre. They also decided each of the 15 wards will take turns to run the kitchen every day.
People from across the panchayat started sending everything needed to run the kitchen -- rice, pulses, masala, tuber crops, onions and vegetables, and fruits -- through the volunteers. The pyramid of yams and cassava in the larder is almost touching the ceiling. "We have enough provisions to run the kitchen for one month," said KK Venugopal, BJP panchayat member and chairman of the food committee.
On the first three days, the community kitchen served vegetarian food. On the fourth day, Chamundikkunu ward member Preethi KS of the BJP donated chicken for inmates. Since then, all the members started including meat and fish on the menu.
On Thursday, James's ward Ariprode gave chicken biryani for lunch. Every day, the kitchen makes food worth around Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000. "So till now, we might have served food worth Rs 2.25 lakh. But it is all from the people," said Venugopal.
Apart from those in the domiciliary centre, food is also delivered to those staying alone or are not in a position to cook for themselves.
The panchayat said the government-sanctioned Rs 10 lakh to run the kitchen but that money is largely untouched. "We have used Rs 2 lakh to buy PPE kits, gloves, mattresses, beds, and sanitiser packs, and pay the fuel bills," said Sudeep S, the panchayat head clerk and in charge of the help desk.
The teachers of the Balanthode schools donated Rs 25,000; Mary, a farmer, donated Rs 10,000. When Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation or Milma restricted milk procurement to 60 per cent because of the low demand during the lockdown, the panchayat members bought the excess milk and gave it to the colonies in containment zones.
Prameela, a dairy farmer, had 35 litres of surplus milk every day. "We distributed one litre of milk, along with bread and one dozen of eggs to houses in the containment zone of Kapithottam," said James. CM Nazir, who runs a supermarket in the panchayat, said a well-wisher gave him Rs 5,000 to pay for the items bought by colony residents in quarantine. "That money got over on Friday," he said.
Promoters of the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste Departments said they have delivered around 250 food kits to families in the panchayat. "But several other clubs and organisations are also pitching in," said ST promoter Rathesh KB.
N Vincent, a member of Cherupanathady ward, said migrant workers and those in the colonies had to give up work and stay indoors to get the covid numbers down. "So we will continue to support them till this is over. We are hoping the graph will flatten out in 45 days," he said.
But James said even if it went on for 60 days, the panchayat could sustain the community kitchen. "We are all farmers after all," he said.