The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs Chairman, M.Ajit Kumar on Wednesday issued the guidelines on the ‘CBIC Aashavasan’, a programme to medically aid and financially assist COVID hit CBIC Members.
“The country is going through an extremely difficult phase due to the second wave of the Covid pandemic. Government is making all efforts to contain the fallout and bring urgent relief to affected citizens. Our department is also a part of this humanitarian effort. Many of our officers too have also been affected by the pandemic. Board has on 03/05/2021 come out with its Covid response and outreach programme ‘CBIC AASHVAASAN’ for medical aid and assistance both in financial terms and by way of supplies of essentials including medicines/food, transport, etc. to all members of the CBIC’s fraternity. I am sure that all the zones will align the yeoman service already being rendered by them with Board’s guidelines,” the chairman said.
The Chairman assured that the Ministry is undertaking the measures at the highest level for the welfare of its hard-working officers and staff. The need of the hour is to and each other at this time of difficulty.
To reiterate, Zonal Chiefs and Head of the keep in mind the various measures while guiding their COVID-19 Response Team.
Firstly, the name and phone numbers of those persons to be Caregivers in the Teams should be publicised. HRD could compile an All India Directory of the same and circulate it widely among CBIC officers and staff.
Secondly, sny officer or staff, serving or retired, should be able to contact these numbers for requesting relief.
Thirdly, once a person has been registered for relief, she should be one volunteer from the Caregivers team whom he can contact for his needs.
Fourthly, the volunteer should also contact the person telephonically at least twice a day or as frequently as required and check on his well being. The volunteer should be another pre-designated volunteer in the Logistics Team about the needs of the person under his/her care, for consultation, medicines, food, tests, scans etc. as and when required.
Fifthly, the Covid Response Team should purchase and maintain oximeters, oxygen concentrators, etc, wherever possible under OE and OTC medications required for use by patients and all efforts should be made to provide the same to the person in along with making provisions for food, etc. in the shortest possible time.
Lastly, they should tie up with hospitals offering tele-medicine counselling and work out a method for affected officers to consult doctors telephonically. Fees, if any payable, can be done through the fund.
The charmain while addressing the letter to all Pr CCs/ CCs, PrDGs/ DGs of Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs said that funds are being provided by the Board for use in these activities. It is also necessary to ensure that we do not spread our resources too thin. Hence, in the zones having multiple DDOs they may pool their monetary and physical resources and have a combined Covid Response Team.
“Board is looking at the processes involved in granting financial relief to the family of the deceased and trying to further simplify it so that monetary relief can be given to the needy at the earliest. Officers/staff, both serving and retired, in a zone could voluntarily contribute money to a fund that may be started and run by the Zonal Covid Response team through an appropriate procedure. This would augment the zonal fund position. Contributions should not be solicited from private persons/organisations/PSUs etc,” the Chairman added.
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