Abhishek Singh launches drive - in Vaccination

Young IAS Officer Abhishek Singh has come out as a hope for those searching for credible plasma donors. His initiative 'United by Blood' is a step towards creating the largest repository for plasma and establish real-time and seamless contact between donors & recipients. In these times when social media is abuzz with people coming out to find & share covid- resources, this unique initiative displays the proactivity of our IAS Officer. United by blood has vaccinated more than 10,000 people.

Speaking about the initiative, Abhishek said, "The idea was to help people and to make all the covid-19 practices more accessible, more citizen-friendly, more efficient and more techno-savvy. We started with plasma donation. We made up portals for connecting plasma donors and recipients. Secondly, we started OxiTaxi’sFree oxygen delivery at the doorstep. Third, we started to drive - in Vaccination, we call it vaccination in the car. While being seated in their cars and people they get vaccinated. So this was the first thing that we started in the country and it has been picked up everywhere and with this concept now people are running vaccination in-car everywhere."

"Initially, we started with free walk-in so people can come without registering themselves and we had opened our website for seeing how many people are there, how many cards are there in the queue, how many vaccines have been used since morning. So, all the information we used to publish on our website and then we shifted to a normal Cowin registration. So, now off rate, the drive-through that we are doing people can book their slot from Cowin where they can get slots and come. Walk-in had almost stopped because initially, we were not sure of the response as to how many people will show up. So, we started an onsite registration. Now because people know about drive-through so now we have started registering them on Cowin," Singh further added.

After the Second Wave hit in there was a lot of confusion and no proper clarity towards things. So to break that clutter of information and to push the authentic information to the beneficiary was quite a task but Now since United by Blood has made its name so things are a bit easier. Giving an in depth insight about the clearance process, Abhishek said, "Initially, it was very difficult however we kept pushing the information through various sources and when people started getting benefited they started spreading the word themselves. So they became our work ambassadors, they posted on their own social media site, they started telling their friends. So by word of mouth this initiative was spread. As you know it's a not for profit initiative we are not making any profit, we are not charging anything. You know this sort of gave credibility to people and I being an IAS officer, I running it so that was an added point of authenticity to the platform. The clearances that we required were A) we wanted to convince the Mall to give their space. So, that was a little difficult initially because people thought if people will start coming then we don’t know if employees can get infected and that was initially their apprehension and then when we told them that people are not going to get out of the car they will remain sitting in their car without stepping out so then they were relaxed and they said it was a very novel initiative to take this forward. However now things are reversed and now Mall’s have started approaching us, saying they want to conduct this drive, can we do it at our premises? So, now things are reversed completely earlier where we used to put in our efforts now it reversed, they are approaching us."

Abhishek Singh further speaks about his inspiration to try new things, his role in Delhi Crime, how pandemic has struck the artist community and much more. Catch the conversation here:

Apart from being an IAS officer, we have seen you in a music album, in Delhi Crime. How was it turning from an IAS officer to an artist and now an actor who is pretty much loved by the audiences? What inspired you to become an actor?

The inspiration comes from within where I always want to try new things in life. I have never limited myself to one profession. I always see myself as a person for whom the profession is a part of the personality and the profession cannot define the person. So I cannot be defined by the statement that I am an IAS officer or I am an actor. So, I am also an actor and also an IAS officer but I am also Abhishek Singh and Abhishek Singh certainly has to be greater and bigger than the profession that he practices.

You played an IAS officer in Delhi crime. Can you share fee insights about the character? Was it easy or was it difficult, given the fact that you already are an IAS officer?

My role in Delhi crime was incidental and very interesting at the same time. I started my acting career with a role that is my real-life profession. That was very interesting for me. It also held me in a way I mean people told me it’s not very difficult to play yourself on camera as most of the things you know, from the body language, you know the environment you are working, you know the nuances. So, all these things you don’t need to practice because you already know. In a way, this is going to help you. So in a way, this gave me a little confidence that ok, I can now face the camera because Netflix is a very big platform. Some show which is going to be released internationally and I just had no acting experience and I will be standing in front of Shefali Shah and Adil Hussain Sahab and facing the camera with them and delivering dialogues. It was making me nervous at first but then people gave me these points then I sort of felt comfortable and then I thought I was confident that yes, I can do this.

How do you think the pandemic has affected the artist community. Since the shoots have stalled, so how has it impacted the industry?

The truth is pandemic has affected each one of us in different manners. It's just that the impact that everyone has seen is different. It depends on person to person and the profession that one practices. So, definitely for artists, it’s been a huge impact because shoots have been stalled and theatres have not opened for the past one and a half year and there is a general euphemism in the industry because people are unsure of the future. So who is investing money in cinemas, in films, in serials, in series, they are also very apprehensive. However, one good thing that we witnessed in the past one and a half year is the rise of the OTT platform and the rise of the OTT platform has also democratised the talent in the industry. So, now people are seeing everyone on the same platform. So we see big star film on the same platform as an actor who jas just short his first debut in a Tv series. In a way, it is a great leveller. So the things like star power do not exist anymore. Its also attracting all sorts of talent on the same platforms. So, now talented people can come forward and there is more recognition and more importance for them in general within the audiences. Otherwise, people used to blame the audiences for accepting the star kids and accepting the well-known stars and rejecting the new generation stars. The acceptances have increased and talent is more recognised, more respected. So, now when things reopen, we will see a changed scenario, a changing industry, a changed preferences of people where it will become more meritorious, more objective.

How is the industry looking at the revival? Since things are slowly opening and the industry is also going on with it.

The way the industry will behave will depend a lot on how people are ready to receive. Now since it's evident that people want content-driven films, content-driven series so the focus will be on the content and less on the performers. Also, now people don’t care if the performer has any legacy or not, whether they have performed in a film before or not, whether he/she is a known face or not. People just want to see whether the performer will be able to perform the given character on screen or not. Now the industry will also find it more convenient because now if you rope in a new performer he will charge also less as compared to a person who is fairly establishede in the industry. So, economics will also play a major role in the whole creative process. I think the industry will see the new and fresh talent coming, fresh content coming, a fresh trend will start from here onwards

Any new future projects that you’d like to tell your fans about?

We will be soon shooting a new song with Badshah. We are hopefully planning to shoot by the end of this month if things go fine and the second is a movie that will begin its shoot super soon. Just waiting for the producers to announce the same.

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