Delhi government's doorstep delivery of services got Covid reboot

NEW DELHI: On September 1, Delhi government restarted the doorstep delivery of services after suspension of nearly five months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The demand has been slowly picking up, but the numbers are yet to reach March levels.


Started two years ago, the scheme offers 100 services across 14 departments, which Delhiites can avail of by calling the helpline 1076 or booking online. The backbone of the scheme are the “Mobile Sahayaks”, who visit the home of applicants and take necessary documents for further processing for a charge of just Rs 50.

“The public response is quite good and we receive 2,000-5,000 calls a day and 100-200 service requests daily. Not all calls turn into service requests or appointments because many are just general queries. Unless the applicant has all the documents available, the appointment is not booked,” said a Delhi government official.

The official said, “At the end of March, the project hit a pause as all public services were stopped when the lockdown started. However, the call centre was only shut from April till mid-May. The call centre executives worked from home to address any calls made by people in panic regarding applications.”

“When unlocking was initiated, Delhi government considered restarting the service. However, the spread of Covid-19 made dealing with the pandemic a priority,” he added.

When the government finally decided to restart the project, it needed to retrain personnel and make a standard protocol. After discussions with chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, the team behind the project worked out a detailed process to bring it back to its full glory.

“Call centre executives were retrained regarding the project and the things they would have to take care of in context of the pandemic. As we didn’t want to restart the doorstep services until we were ready, we directed the call centre to follow up all pre-lockdown applications, which were cleared before the project was restarted,” said the official.

The Mobile Sahayaks were retrained and provided masks, sanitisers and gloves. They were instructed to process applications with social distancing of six feet. After every service process, they were asked to sanitise their tablets. The Aarogya Setu app was made compulsory and if any sahayak showed symptoms, they were not allowed to work until they were fit or the Covid-19 test result was negative.

Special operating procedures have also been put in place by the government. “No appointments will be booked for containment zones. The call centre has the updated data for them. While booking the appointment, call centre executives ask applicants regarding any infection reported in or near their house. In case of positive cases, the applicant has to make sure the patient has recovered,” the official said.

“This project can revolutionise the world of public services and also help reduce community spread of the viral infection in government offices. We are planning to slowly close public dealing in government departments. The pilot stage has been successfully completed in some district offices,” said the official.