By Matters India Reporter

Siliguri: Young Indians (Yi), founded in the year 2002, is a movement to converge, lead, co-create & influence India’s future. Yi is an integral part of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) that aims to realize the dream of a developed nation.

Yi Siliguri was formed in 2013 and currently engages over 128 young entrepreneurs, students from leading educational institutions (colleges and schools) and habitats of eight villages in and around Siliguri, in its various activities focused on Nation Building, Youth Leadership and Thought Leadership.

With the sudden surge in the COVID19 cases in the country, the health care sector has been over-burdened in the second wave. The health care facilities in the nation are trying their best to serve the society however there are reports that people are getting slots for RT-PCR tests after a gap of 2-3 days in some places & also the test reports are taking more than the usual time frame which is causing a delay in treatments for positive cases.

To bring the situation under control in terms of the COVID-19 testing, Young Indians have entered into an arrangement with Thyrocare Technologies Ltd. to set up portable RT-PCR Swab Collection Centres across the nation which will offer testing at a subsidized rate of Rs. 500 per test.

Yi-Siliguri in association with Don Bosco Alumni Association, Siliguri has set up one such centre at Don Bosco Primary School to offer RTPCR testing facilities to all at the subsidized rate & with reports in 48-72 hours of sample collection.

The Centre was on May 26 inaugurated by Rajen Chettri, ACP- Siliguri Metropolitan Police, Fr. Davis from Don Boso School and Raunak Goyal, National Vice-Chair, Young Indians in the presence of the members of Young Indians & Don Bosco Alumni Association.

The swab collection was supposed to be initiated from May 26 but due to limited flight connectivity at concerned airports on account of the cyclone – Yaas, it has been rescheduled to May 28. The centre is equipped to collect 100 samples per day & has all arranged to adhere to all the COVID-19 protocols at the premises.

Currently, there are seven such centres operational in Kolkata, one in Vizag and Young Indians intends to launch such centres across all its 55 chapters in the country in association with Thyrocare to make testing affordable and reporting faster.