MITIGATION AND MANAGEMENT OF COVID-19: PRACTICES FROM INDIA’S STATES &amp; UNION TERRITORIES
Authors: Prasad Urvashi , Sarwal Rakesh , Gopal K Madan , Paul Vinod K 
Published: July 2021

This compendium details information about various practices and initiativesimplemented by States, Districts and Cities in India for containing and managing theCOVID-19 outbreak. It is important to note that these initiatives are not being termedas ‘best practices’ by NITI Aayog as that would require a separate and comprehensiveevaluation exercise as well as longer term follow-up. Moreover, in a rapidly evolvingsituation, it can be challenging to consistently and fully correlate practices withoutcomes - a practice might yield good results for a certain period of time but cease todo so thereafter.An email was sent to all States and Union Territories (UTs) in July, 2020 requestingthem to share any practices or models that they believe had been useful for COVID-19mitigation and management. The email was followed up with phone calls to officials fromthe health departments in States and UTs. Ten States/UTs responded in writing to thisrequest for information. Additional information was provided by States telephonically aswell as during review meetings with Member (Health), NITI Aayog.Literature searches were conducted using various combinations of keywords inPubMed, ScienceDirect, Google and Google Scholar. Relevant case studies andpapers were also identified by searching the websites of State/UT Governments andthe National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The last literature search wasconducted on November 10, 2020.Only case studies/reports/papers published in English between 1 February-10November, 2020 were considered. While efforts have been made by all States and UTsto follow the broad guidelines issued by the Central Government pertaining to differentaspects of COVID containment and management, this review captures the specificpractices adopted by State and UT Governments to make the implementation of theCentral Guidelines effective and relevant to their local context.All case studies/reports/papers highlighting practices/interventions/models implementedby State or Sub-State Governments on their own or in collaboration with civil society,private sector, volunteers were included in this review. Case studies/reports/papersfocusing on interventions implemented by civil society organizations, private sectoror individuals independent of any partnership with State/Local Governments wereexcluded from this review.Practices have been categorized into the following broad themes: public health andclinical response, governance mechanisms, digital health, integrated models as well 10 Report on Mitigation and Management of COVID-19as welfare of migrants and other vulnerable groups. While governance and technologycut across several themes, they have been included separately to highlight certainpractices adopted by States which pertain primarily to putting in place governancemechanisms or leveraging technology for COVID containment and management.A summary of the relevant Government of India guidelines has been included for theaforementioned categories, wherever applicable. It is important to note that theseguidelines are continually revised based on the emerging scenario with respect to theCOVID-19 outbreak.