Role of Local Self-Government during Global Health Emergency in India

Abstract

It's almost been 3 years since COVID-19 emerged and, like a shocking punch, knocked out all our lives. It's been a horrid time. We have been through a lot. India's healthcare system collapsed, leaving hospitals full of untreated patients. All this time, the central government, state governments, and local governments in India have played a major role in implementing the health policies. We have seen local governments worked at the front to prevent the spread of coronavirus and mitigate its impact on communities. The whole country was in lockdown, and the directions of local government were being observed at the national level. Local self-government bridges the gap between the state and the citizens of the country. In a country like India, with a population of 1.4 billion, it was a very tough job for the government to prevent the Corona virus from spreading and implement the necessary policies to deal with the global health emergency. In India, health issues are considered a state responsibility. The states use the three-tier system to divide and implement their policies between urban and rural parts of the states. Furthermore, the local self-government plays an important role in strengthening the public health system. Local governments accumulate data and furnish it to the state authorities in order to assist the state in developing policies to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

This article contains an in-depth study of how local self-government prevented the spread of coronavirus in the first and second waves on a broad scale and played a vital role in vaccination. This paper will offer some suggestions as well as some safeguards that we should take care of before the next wave arrives.

Keywords: Indian Healthcare System, Local Self-Government, COVID-19 Pandemic, India.