Hyderabad, Apr 24 (IANS): Telangana Governor, Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan on Friday called for utilising services of the volunteers of the National Service Scheme (NSS), Junior Red Cross (JRC) and Youth Red Cross (YRC) to create awareness on Covid-19 prevention and to promote vaccination.
She said that while strictly adhering to the Covid-appropriate behaviour, the volunteers can offer their services in creating awareness about the proper wearing of masks, maintaining social distance and avoiding gatherings among all the sections of the people in their respective places.
Soundararajan, in her capacity as the Chancellor of all the state universities, held a video conference with the Vice Chancellors of different universities and the senior officials of the Education Department.
During the video conference, she pointed out that students of higher educational institutions and volunteers of different wings like the NSS, the NCC, the YRC and the JRC are a great resource for utilisation to promote awareness among the people.
"We may come out with the best medicines, ventilators, or oxygen supplies, but it is very important to prevent the spread of the pandemic by educating different sections of the people. Public education is very vital in the prevention of the pandemics of this nature," she said.
"Though there is no need to panic, the situation is really alarming. It is anguishing to know that at least 40 per cent of the Covid-19 patients are youth. There is an urgent need to create better awareness about the necessity for the strict adherence to the preventive norms," she added.
Soundararajan exhorted the Vice Chancellors to encourage their students to launch social media campaigns and to come up with innovative ideas on the promotion of preventive norms and to encourage vaccination.
The Governor also instructed the Vice Chancellors to ensure 100 per cent vaccination of their teaching and non-teaching staff. All the eligible students, who are above 18 years, must also be encouraged to go for vaccination beginning from May 1.
She also reviewed the progress related to online classes, online examination, online valuation, results declaration, and the preventive norms in place in the campuses.
She directed the Vice Chancellors to expedite the networking and registration of all the alumni of their respective universities so as to utilise alumni services for the all-round development of the campuses and for the benefit of the present students.
She suggested the universities to build online and digital library resources for the benefit of those underprivileged students, who cannot access the online classes on time.
Special Chief Secretary, Education, Chitra Ramachandran, senior IAS officers Jayesh Ranjan, Arvind Kumar, B. Janardhan Reddy, Naveen Mittal, Neetu Kumari Prasad, Vikas Raj, Rahul Bojja and the Vice Chancellors of different universities presented their reports to the Governor.
Secretary to Governor, K. Surendra Mohan and other senior officials of the Raj Bhavan were present.