Kailash Karthik, DC, Kamrup (Rural) spoke exclusively to The Sentinel Assam

Kailash Karthik, DC, Kamrup (Rural) spoke exclusively to The Sentinel Assam on how the administration has been able to fight COVID as well as one of the worst floods in over 15 years.

Kartik also shared steps being taken to help the artisans,

weavers and craftsmen of Hajo and Sualkuchi.

Here are the excerpts of the interview.

Sentinel Assam: How are you coping with the challenges that COVID has thrown at you. You have successfully overcome most of those I am sure.

Kailash Karthik: In terms of overcoming the challenge for say, I don't think we've overcome the challenges, it's sort of a long battle, just trying to make sure that we stay ahead of how fast the disease spreads. We were focused on trying to make sure that there is no chance of a community spread at all and we tried our best in terms of setting up quarantine centers when people came back from various parts of the country across the districts and across the state. Subsequently we changed our focus and our energy, we completely shifted our focus on making sure that the people who have tested positive, they get the best care so that they recover fast and go back home with a positive frame of mind and while also making sure that we Increasing our testing so that this not translate into community spread in which case the health infrastructure will be completely stressed.

So, at the district level we have had over 9,000 cases in Kamrup (rural) as we are adjacent district to Guwahati. A lot of people either live in Kamrup (rural) and work in Guwahati or vice versa. It's like a Twin City. The lock down that was given in Kamrup (metro) had a dramatic impact in slowing down the spread of virus even in Kamrup (rural) because inter-district movement was restricted to a large extent. But now since one cannot be in locked down mode forever, lockdown restrictions have been lifted. We are also seeing an increase in the the numbers, we are also increasing our testing rate. We used to test something like about 500 samples a day about 10 days back, which as a percentage of our population was about 35 samples per lakh population per day, now as of today, we have increased these to about 1,400 samples a day this sort of means that we are able to test between 75 to 80 people for lakh per day. We are also setting up similar centers in various parts of the district. Kamrup rural has a lot of small towns like Chaigaon , Vijaynagar. These small towns have a large aggregation of people, we are trying to set up testing centers in these places. We have already set up 11 COVID care and counseling centers and we are planning to take the number up to about 41 centres. We want to make testing as accessible as possible to the public and take it as close to where they are. These are some of the strategies that we have been working on, which I am sure in the long run will have a very fruitful impact.

Sentinel Assam: Was it a challenge to make people in the interiors understand about COVID and the whole think of following social distancing norms etc?

Kailash Karthik: Truth be told, I have just been Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup (rural) for about two months now, I used to be in the finance department as Joint Secretary. So, I was not there at the initial part of the COVID outbreak, but having said that I did still have a bird's eye view being part of finance and being very closely associated with health department so from that experience I think it was extremely difficult to convey the messages of social distancing, wearing masks or regularly sanitizing hands. I think these are completely foreign concepts for not just the people in rural Assam, rural India but also for all of us. So it was definitely difficult and some of those messages we still are trying to percolate down to the field. Beyond a point, the idea is also not to scare people either.

Sentinel Assam: Personally for you, from the Finance department directly to handling Kamrup (rural) amid COVID must have been quite a shift?

Kailash Karthik: Yes, because in finance department you deal with numbers and here you deal with real people. Definitely it has been a steep learning curve with no time to sort of settle down. It was like hitting the ground running but thankfully we have had a very good team and in general from the Administration side, Health Department, Police and even the public in general have been fairly cooperative so so far we have managed to stay ahead of the game.

Sentinel Assam: Our rural healthcare facilities have always been poor. How have you managed to cope with that?

Kailash Karthik: The focus is back on the need to expand and improve rural healthcare facilities. I think the kind of investments that the government is making to ensure that the spread of the disease is as low as possible and the mortality rates are as low as possible I think that it's been probably unparalleled in any of the other states — whether it's been free testing to free transportation to free food and treatment and so many other things which doesn't often get reflected in media. The huge investment and the fact that the government is proactively involved and has completely mobilised the health care staff. We hear from other states about doctors' negligence and other issues but you don't seem to hear that many issues from Assam. The amount of effort the doctors, nurses and other healthcare stuff, whether it's the laboratory technicians or the cleaners all of them have been putting in, has helped us. Despite whatever shortcomings we have in the rural healthcare space whether it is the number of doctors or health infrastructure quality, we have been able to overcome all challenges with the specific focus on COVID.

Sentinel Assam: Let's move on to the flood situation. Resources are limited, whether its manpower or the funds so how has the situation been so far?

Kailash Karthik: I think 2020 is a very special year. We have had some of the most difficult flood situation this year. Kamrup (rural) has about 11 circles, of which 9 circles have had instances of flood and erosion. In certain areas like Rangia town which has probably not witnessed flood in the last 10 or 15 years or probably even longer, this time witnessed three waves of floods. There was a wave of flood that submerged most of town. These are extraordinary situations but the team has been handling it. About 278 villages have been affected. Because of COVID challenges are greater in managing floods because you need to also ensure social distancing, wearing a mask, sanitisers, but with the support of the public we have been able to sort of take care and in the coming days we will conduct COVID tests in the flood relief camps.

Sentinel Assam: You have areas like Hajo, Sualkuchi under you, where we have a lot of weavers, bell metal artisans and other craftsmen. Due to COVID most of their livelihoods are gone. What is the administration doing to help them?

Kailash Karthik: We don't have an official assessment or a scientific assessment of the economic impact of lockdown on some of these clusters. We are yet to initiate any economic study, but having said that we have been closely interacting with the communities, we have been getting the pulse of the challenges that they are facing and we have undertaken a number of schemes like giving free rice and other essentials. This has been given to those who do not come under the strict definition of National Food Security Act. Interventions have been initiated under the Atmanirbhar Bharat scheme. These are some of the things which we have begun but once the larger battle of COVID is somewhat overcome we will be in a better position to focus our capabilities to help these clusters. Banks have been asked to ease norms for loans. What is also happening now is that many people who are involved in sanctioning loans for giving aide to people are also testing positive. This is hampering our functioning, we are trying to work our way around all these challenges.

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