Gujarat: Eduaction dept. ordered the NSS students to serve as COVID-19 volunteers.

The Gujarat government has passed an order to rope in school and college students enrolled with the National Service Scheme (NSS) for Covid-19 duties. The decision comes after it held a meeting with officials of the NSS, National Cadet Corps (NCC) and Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan.

These students will help corona warriors by assisting a patient in an ambulance to get a bed, as well as helping attendants and drivers of ambulance and other vehicles ferrying patients to get food and water, Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat announced on Friday.

NSS students have to help with registration and data entry, traffic management, setting up isolation centres in villages, food-water arrangements for Covid patients and their attendants, awareness among citizens towards Covid appropriate behaviour, general awareness for vaccination, help desk management, queue and ambulance management, counselling of corona patients’ relatives and assisting them and other such work as directed by the collector outside a Covid centre.

In an order issued by the education department on Friday, nodal officers in each district will co-ordinate with the state health department and district collectors to decide on duties to be undertaken by NSS students outside a Covid centre.

However, the order stipulates a consent letter from NSS programme officers of the student’s college or school and parents before assigning them any task. The nodal officers have been directed to prepare list of such students at the earliest.

School NSS volunteers are being roped in majorly to spread awareness on vaccination drive. The state has over 70,000 NCC students, while NSS has a little less than this strength.

The Governor held a series of virtual meetings with the officials of NSS, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, NCC and Red Cross Society separately, attended by health officials.

The Governor also flagged off Corona Sewa Yagna from the Raj Bhawan on Friday. It involves a three-pronged approach that includes support through ration supply to Class-IV healthcare workers, life through oxygen concentrators to hospitals and prevention by spreading awareness on getting vaccinated.