After a spurt in COVID-19 cases especially in residential areas last month, apart from the civic body's regulations, officials of the H West ward have taken up measures to deal with the pandemic more efficiently. While vendors have been asked to maintain health certificates that are updated weekly, the ward is remotely updating COVID-19-related data on a software that is accurate and less time-consuming.

The software, 'H West COVID 19 Information Centre', implemented last month, allows ward officials to upload and update information about every COVID-19 patient, including details of high-risk contacts. Vinayak Vispute, assistant municipal commissioner of the ward, said, "There is a lot of fieldwork involved and ward officials also have to report the data collected. This was taking a lot of time and led to repetitions. Through the software, officials fill up a form through an app to upload data." He added that while most of the software is functional, linking with hospitals and a couple of other aspects are still being worked out.