BIHAR: When migrants in droves started returning to Bihar’s Sitamarhi, the scale of government-sponsored care was huge. A district collector had to ensure mandatory quarantine with all facilities, arrange treatment, enforce the lockdown and expedite tracking, testing and treatment of the returnees.
The most challenging task was arranging face masks – these were not easily available for the poor. The young DM Abhilasha Kumari Sharma took the challenge head-on. The 2014-batch IAS officer launched the Mask Force Campaign (MFC) taking help of social media to motivate housewives or women associated with SHGs.
The 31-year-old technocrat-turned-bureaucrat took the campaign to almost every house, motivated the women and got a record number of face masks produced. “I appealed to the people, especially women and those associated with Jeevika Didis, to start tailoring face masks as a service to humanity”, Sharma said. Jeevika didis are women associated with Bihar Rural Livelihood Promotion Society. The DM would spare a couple of hours from her tough schedule to monitor the campaign. She also called up Madhubani painting artistes and encouraged them to convert the MFC into a mission mode.
Purnima Devi, an artist of Madhubani paintings, recalls when she got a call from the DM urging her to make masks, she felt privileged to be a part of the campaign. Purnima then enrolled other women in the neighbourhood. “I remember what the DM told us: ‘we the women save our families. In the same way, we must save other people by making masks. All of us got down to it”, said Purnima.
“I coined a slogan Bano Mask Force ka hissa; khatam karo Corona ka kissa” (be a part of Mask Force to end the story of Corona). This became popular among women”, said the DM. “The MFC also led to creating livelihood opportunities for women in rural areas. It greatly helped those women who were reeling under debt traps.”While Jeevika didis produced designers masks with Madhubani paintings, other women produced simple three-layered masks. “Even high-school going girls started manufacturing masks at the call of the DM,” says Sonal Kumari, a local.
They made more than 5.15 lakh masks which helped the administration in ensuring face masks to all returning from across the country. “These masks manufactured by 13,545 women came with an estimated cost of `1.30 crore under the campaign,” said Sharma. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lauded the efforts of Jeevika Didi, Rubina Khatoon. She had sent a designer mask rakhi to the PM, who thanked her in a letter. The DM also felicitated Rubina. She says Rubina’s whole family made face masks under the campaign. “Words of encouragement from the DM injected a new kind of taqat (energy) among us and we took it as a challenge and produced thousands of masks,” says Rubina.