How Odisha Addresses the Issue of Pandemic Under the Dynamic and Pro People Leadership of Naveen Patnaik

Below is the excerpts of OSD to Odisha Chief Minister, Dr. Gopabandhu Dash’s address at International Webinar on “Writing Post-Pandemic Life World: Society, Cultural Materialities, and Practices” organized by Department of History, Ravenshaw University on July 8.

Bhubaneswar: The gripping context of Covid-19 in the wake of current pandemic has entailed an abrupt commencement of the regime of new normality redefining both cultural and civilizational codes for the world order. More significantly, the new public health codes in terms of social distancing, lockdown, and quarantine implemented with the mighty apparatus of the state, have necessitated trenchant interrogation of the questions of liberty, individual rights and economic freedom alongside the choices that the government has opted for in the cause of public and universal good.

The pandemic has certainly drawn our concerns to the ruptures underlying the certitudes of a neoliberal order. The present moment has evoked a response to initiate a conversation between the nuances of planetary histories or species history of human with global histories of capital. And more so, how to configure the idea of state and its technology of governmentality. It also poses questions regarding imperatives of shifting orientations in the current form of bio-politics underlying public health code as well as issue of livelihood as practiced in demographies across the globe in view of extraordinary tension facing the humanity at large.

The ubiquitous presence of Coronavirus and climate change have alerted us to the inescapabilty of the question of probing the limits to the humanist histories of modernity, globalization and history as a form of knowledge. What could be the code and texture of a new pedagogy and language that may re inscribe and reimagine life worlds in their critical and enriched multitudinous shapes than being understood in the linearity of universal history of enlightenment?

It is worth noting that the government of Odisha has addressed the issue of pandemic with critical insights from the beginning under the dynamic and pro-people leadership of its Chief Minister, Shri Naveen Patnaik along with his extremely competent and dedicated 5T Secretary VK Pandian, who have the vision of making Odisha a model state in combating corona pandemic.

Odisha’s approach focusing on the imperatives of public health governance to deal with the impact of pandemic for society and people at large has become a role model for many states in South Asia even evoking appreciation at global level. The state has put in place comprehensive public health mechanism for close surveillance of the people to monitor their health status while assuaging at the same time the emotional and psychological needs of the migrant population.

Key Points:

• Odisha is the first state in the country to enforce lockdown over 40 percent of the state, the biggest of its kind in India’s history from March 22.
• Odisha is the first state to start dedicated government COVID hospitals run by professionals and dedicated separate COVID hospitals in all 30 districts.
• Odisha is the first state to start online registration of people returning from outside the State.
• Odisha is the first state to issue e-passes to stranded workers keen to return to their homes.
• Odisha is the first state in the country to start community monitoring of people in home quarantine.
• Odisha is the first state to give responsibility to gram panchayats to maintain TMC (Temporary Medical Camps).
• Odisha is the first state in India to give 15,000 cash incentive for declaring travel history.
• Odisha is the only state to start telemedicine helpline for the people during the lockdown.
• Odisha is the only state to sanction funds to feed stray animals during lockdown.
• Odisha is the first state to start special helpline for guest workers stranded in the State.
• Odisha is the first state to ensue PDS supply for three months in advance to all.
• Odisha is the only state to provide women SHGs in managing COVID management in terms of providing cooked food and masks.
• Odisha has announced Rs 22000 crore special package for the welfare of the people, migrants students and workers who come from outside.
• TMCs have been created with all facilities to provide quarantine and COVID care homes have been set up in each GP. Besides, intensive door to door health survey has been conducted across the state by surveillance teams.
• Odisha is the first state to announce life insurance coverage of Rs 50 lakh for COVID warriors, who die in course of discharging their duties. For the first time in the history of India, martyr status is given to non-military personnel.
• A special registration portal was created for migrant workers.
• Antigen tests are being carried out in all hotspot districts in the state to prevent the spread of the virus. Besides, appropriate IEC campaign is being launched to educate and aware all about various aspects of COVID-19.
• Odisha will have now a system of online entry of occupancy in COVID care centres. The COVID care centres will have facilities to connect patients with their families.
• The State Government has also introduced ‘Mo Sarkar’ for COVID-19 management. Now feedback from patients and COVID care warriors will be collected.
• Odisha’s COVID recovery rate is higher than the country’s recovery rate. Odisha’s recovery rate stands at 65.95 per cent whereas India’s recovery rate is 61.53 per cent as on July 8.

In current crisis ridden period, historians world over have a role to guide the governments to rethink the nature of state and rise above narrow considerations of nationality. We have to develop supra consciousness thinking the entire planet as one. Our relationship vis-a vis other living and non-livings needs to be redesigned. In the scheme of things, humans need to understand that they are as much needed for nature as other livings are.

Historians need to question the present to get answer such crucial points. Since all history is contemporary history, historians have an important role to set the facts straight. The need of the hour is to develop a sense of oneness not otherness.