A top telecom and information technology expert on Thursday pitched for aggressive use of technology in the battle against COVID-19, leveraging the capabilities of tech companies to deploy quick solutions. The former Telecom and IT Secretary R Chandrashekhar said technological methods can be used to keep essential services going during the lock-down period.
"Old method of people going and applying for passes, then going around, definitely not going to work," he told PTI. "So, the whole point if it can be automated."
The former President of NASSCOM noted that people involved in the supply chain of certain essential commodities from production to transportation to wear-housing to distribution to retail will need to be authorised during this period.
"Its difficult for the government itself to directly authorise each and every case because even the means of verification is not available," he said, adding, in this regard, using technologies such as blockchain the government can distribute the authorisation in a controlled way, to organisations.
In some states, he said, because of very vigorous implementation of the lockdown, essential commodities supply has also got disrupted.
"So, these need guidelines, so that right balance is struck between the vigorous implementation of lock-down and leaving enough room for essential aspects of life to go on," Chandrashekhar said.
Stressing the need bring in technology solutions on a quick basis, he said there are enough companies volunteering their effort and solutions, adding, based on their capabilities "some of these tasks could be formed out."
He also called for aggressive use of technology for "predicting" the spread of the coronavirus and its likely impact on the health infrastructure, underlining the importance of predictive modelling from medical response perspective.
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