As India enters the third phase of its lockdown to battle the spread of the deadly coronavirus, it has become clear to us as a whole that this cannot only be controlled by the doctor’s working day and night but requires everyone to dutifully step up and morally contribute to the fight against COVID-19. With all the precautionary measures taken by the government at every step to fight this battle, gram panchayats have also been playing a major role in staunching the spread of the disease and taking all the possible measures; creating awareness among the residents of the villages, providing them all the essential resources to survive the lockdown, tracing people with travel history and actively working with the medical staff in order to cure the disease. The gram panchayats have come out to be the unsung warriors in the fight against the deadly virus. Even before the State and the Union government had published any guidelines to be followed by the residents in order to fight the spread of coronavirus, the gram panchayats were already working on it. Creating awareness about the disease, maintaining the social distance in public, hygiene level among the individuals, providing food and shelter in times of such vulnerable situations in the economy and actively reporting cases which have been identified as covid positive due to any travel history or any other given reason. These gram panchayats across India are also supporting migrants who are in transit.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed several gram panchayats across the country on 24 th April through video conference. PM Modi launched the unified e-GramSwaraj portal and a mobile app on this occasion as part of a new initiative aimed at providing Gram Panchayats with a single interface to prepare and implement gram panchayat development plan. Joint Secretary of Government of India has issued a letter on 3 rd April stating that FFC’s grants for the 5 year period of 2015-2020 shall be given to the Gram panchayats for delivering the basic services of sanitation, drinking water, street light supply, sewerage , to fight the pandemic crisis in the rural areas. In exceptional times like this when the whole country is fighting against the deadly virus, gram panchayat have come out to be a strong support and are showing capacity along with knowledge and collaborating with government against the pandemic. All the support coming from the panchayats around the country has catered to be of a great help and shall do the same in this fight against COVID-19.