Helpline facilitates over 3,000 stranded J-K residents across India

More than 3,000 residents of Jammu and Kashmir, including 800 students, who are stranded in different parts of the country due to the ongoing lockdown, were given temporary accommodation, cooked food and medicines, etc. over the past fortnight, an official spokesman said on Saturday.

With an aim to address the issues faced by the residents of the Union Territory living in different parts of the country, a 24X7 helpline centre was established at J&K Resident Commissioner Office, New Delhi following the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"As far as the queries of students are concerned, during the last 14 days, the liaison officers (Los) have handled more than 250 queries from 50 locations across India rendering help to 800 students, the spokesman said.

Similarly, he said the helpline team handled more than 1,000 queries from 30 locations from labourers, workers, business persons and patients during the same period and provided help to 2500 persons.

He said the helpline is engaged with local administrations of more than 18 states in rendering all possible help in the form of cooked food, dry ration, medicines, vegetables as well temporary accommodation wherever required.

Almost all the district administrations have been very prompt and responsive in their actions and are making sure that all the issues are resolved on war front, the spokesman said.

He said the centre is being run by a team of Resident Commission Office New Delhi under the guidance of Principal Resident Commissioner Dheeraj Gupta and is being ably supported by a strong team of seven LOs.

"All the queries have been adequately closed post ensuring complete follow up and after confirmation from the caller that his/her issue has been resolved, he said adding the top few location with high number of queries have been Chandigarh, Mohali, Ropar, Bhopal, Kota, Jaipur, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Dehradun.

In case of labourers in Himachal Pradesh, the LO- Chandigarh helped them to get accommodated in schools and panchayat ghars.

Many of them are being served cooked food on a daily basis from local NGOs and government facilities, the spokesman said.

In some cases of patients stuck in Mumbai and Delhi, he said the LOs helped them to accommodate in guest houses on a temporary basis.