Manipur: ‘Covid-free village competition’ to curb spread of virus

The cash award for the first prize will be Rs 10,000 followed by Rs 7000 as the second prize and Rs 5,000 as third.

Police in Manipur’s Senapati district on Monday announced a “Covid-Free Village Competition” with cash prizes, aiming to curb the spread of the novel virus through the initiative in over 170 villages of the district.

The cash award for the first prize will be Rs 10,000 followed by Rs 7000 as the second prize and Rs 5,000 as third. Consolation prizes for next 10 villages would follow. The competition started from June 5 and will continue till October 1. The result will be declared on October 10.

Giving details of the competition, a police statement said that overall marks will be 300, out of which, 100 will be for ‘Covid-free’ village; 100 for vaccination percentage of eligible population (above 18 years); and remaining 100 for number of police challan for violating Covid-appropriate behavior — villages having zero challan will get 100 marks whereas, there would be a penalty of five (-5) marks for every challan.

“This competition will encourage villagers to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour at village-level so that Covid cases will be near zero. Otherwise, their marks will be reduced in penalty (-10) for every Covid positive case,” SDPO Senapati, Pravin Ingawale, a 2017-batch IPS officer who is the brain behind the initiative, told The Indian Express.

“This initiative will encourage villagers to stay home and step out only for emergency purposes — else police will challan them for not following Covid-appropriate behaviour and quarantine guidelines. There are negative marks for every such challan (-5 ), so there will be deterrence that will help curb Covid spread and break the chain,” he added.

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