On April 21, 2020, Amidst the coronavirus epidemic, Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare has launched the ‘COVID India Seva’, a Twitter handle for citizen engagement on the coronavirus (COVID-19). The aim of this initiative is to enable real-time e-governance delivery and answer citizen queries.
Key Points:
i.The channel @CovidIndiaSeva is being hosted on Twitter Seva, will benefit citizens to find immediate solution to their health problems. They can get updates on the measures being taken by the government to prevent the spread of corona infection and information about health services.
ii.The platform is a multi-lingual platform, where Hindi is used as the second most language after English.It will also benefit the government reach out to a large number of users and answer their queries that in turn further help reduce any COVID-19 related misinformation on Twitter.
iii.Earlier the Twitter has provided the official COVID-19 helplines at a state level for Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh governments. While the health Ministry has launched stock of initiatives in the war against Corona- including focused travel and health advisories, various Guidelines/Standard Operating Procedures for different stakeholders across the public and private sectors for the governments, hospitals, citizens, etc.
About Ministry of Health and Family Welfare:
Headquarters– New Delhi
Minister of State– Ashwini Kumar Choubey
