This Is How Gurugram's WhatsApp COVID Helpline Is Saving Lives

During the height of the second wave of COVID infection, SOS messages were being amplified through WhatsApp groups & messages. And so were offers of help, available resources and where these could be found. A number of municipal authorities, district administrations and even state governments used WhatsApp to disseminate much needed information to their citizens.

At the same time, this Haryana government integrated command centre was being fed data and was answering queries through the Gurugram District Administration's Covid Helpline on WhatsApp.

Developed by a group of citizen volunteers, a series of tie-ups, including with WhatsApp, the DC Gurugram Helpline was launched in early May. 

The chatbot integrates a number of services and a number of agencies - the municipal corporation of Gurugram, the district administration, health services and Gurugram police - onto a single dashboard.

This initiative saved 68-year-old Himanshu's life, the Gurugram resident tells NDTV, 

I could fulfil the step-by-step formalities through this chat-bot, I uploaded my details, address and within half an hour, an ambulance took me to the COVID centre in Sector 67 to admit me.

Since May 5th, when the chatbot was launched, over 5,600 queries have been received, for a variety of resources ranging from hospital beds to meals and even medicines. 

With all the services being integrated onto a single helpline platform, the queries now also extend to oxygen booking and covid funeral services.

Saikat Datta, Co-founder, Deepstrat and Citizen Volunteer,  

This is a model which can be very easily replicated for anybody who wants to use it because when a pandemic comes, even the governments are hit in a very bad way. This not only helped integrate all services together, but also helped citizens work along with the government and ensure that we could take care of all the people around us.