SILCHAR, April 22 - In a first, the Cachar district administration has launched a portal to contain and disperse crowd accumulation and enhance social distancing during the nationwide lockdown period meant to restrict the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
The webportal named �Report Crowd� which would be operational along with the official website of the district administration was launched formally in the presence of Deputy Commissioner Barnali Sarma, District Development Commissioner Jessica Lalsim, ADC Sumit Sattawan and other officials.
Taking to mediapersons on the launch, the Deputy Commissioner said, �The facility will ensure social distancing and enable the administration to disperse crowd across the district with the help of feed in the form of on-the-spot photographs with Geo tagging. We hope that we shall be able to maintain the social distancing norms smoothly henceforth.�
Later, Assistant Commissioner Abhilash Baranwal elaborated on the usage of the portal saying that following the Government guidelines on relaxing certain areas of work in the Government sector and anticipating a possible crowd gathering, the facility has been introduced with the technical assistance from software firm Clappia based in Bengaluru. The firm is offering free services during the lockdown phase.
�This kind of an portal is being introduced for the first time in Assam to ensure that social distancing is being adhered to at all cost. The Report Crowd is linked with the official website of Cachar district administration where the aware citizens along with commoners can help the administration in dispersing crowd for the common good. Anyone who finds a seemingly large assembly of people at one place can simply click a photo, go to cachar.gov.in and upload the photo at the URL cacharreport.clappia.com with little details about the photograph.
The geo-tagging button shall help identify the location. The sender has to upload individual phone number and identity which shall be kept confidential with the administration and ensure that no misuse or abuse of any information is done. The DDMA shall send the information received to respective Circle Officers with serial numbers from where the information, after proper verification, shall trickle down to police for on-ground action. Police shall send �action taken report� back to the Circle Officers with details of FIR, arrest, seizure, vehicle seizure and penalty imposed. The same report shall be submitted by the Circle Officers to DDMA and finally to DC, Cachar.� Baranwal added to say that the administration expects that people of Cachar shall co-operate to maintain social distancing during the lockdown phase.