mumbai days after prime minister narendra modi lauded the maharashtra governments efforts to control covid19 the union health ministry on tuesday presented the mumbai model of decentralised war rooms as an effective method for bed allotment and pune as a case study for successful implementation of strict containment measures leading to a decline in casestwo important aspects of battling the infection in a press conference on tuesday lav agarwal joint secretary of the health ministry said effective citizen communication and decentralisation of processes such as setting up of ward level control rooms helped smoothen the hospital admission process in mumbai they decentralised the control room meant for citizen engagement and each of the 24 wards had one control room these control rooms not only had telephone operators they had doctors and medical support staff who coordinated with ambulance operators this team analysed the need for a patient to be hospitalised and assisted them in admission said agarwal also the test results were shared with the administration that communicated these to the patients and guided them and this approach eliminated panic said the health ministry mumbais successful handling of the second wave has been credited to the war rooms working 24x7 jumbo field hospitals and oxygen management last week even the apex court had praised the mumbai model for its effective handling of the crisis the ministry said mumbais central dashboard to monitor available hospital beds track ambulances and a system of procuring beds ensured citizens did not face any problem stringent implementation of containment activity in pune has led to a dip in the positivity rate as well as the number of cases the positivity rate was 418 before strict lockdownlike restrictions were imposed which has now dropped to 234 also cases are on the decline said agarwal pune district has shown a decline in covid cases in the past two weeks the centre and the state had been at loggerheads regarding various issues from vaccine supply to even the allotted oxygen quota