'New Ration Cards Not Being Made'

Q: How is the Gram Panchayat facilitating the registration for new ration cards?

Assistant Block Development Officer (Assistant BDO): New ration cards are not being made. Any sort of correction in the ration card is also not happening right now.

Q: Has your district increased COVID-19 testing? Are people following social distancing norms and wearing masks?

Assistant BDO: The testing has increased, but people are not following the norms nor are they wearing masks. Whenever we are in the field ['field' usually means non office-based tasks such as monitoring], we are constantly asking people to use masks!

People are not being penalised for their failure to wear masks.

Q: How is the Gram Panchayat keeping count of the new returning migrants? What is the process followed for registering them for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)?

Assistant BDO: Every Gram Panchayat submits a daily report online. So we are keeping a track of migrants.

Migrants who wanted work have been given the job card and they have been given work too.

We have targets of monitoring the MGNREGS work that has started.

This interview was conducted with an Assistant Block Development Officer in Jaipur, Rajasthan in Hindi on 15 July 2020, and has been translated.

Source: Business Insider