Chennai: Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami today said that the proactive and aggressive measures taken by the State government have resulted in declining trend of new positive cases in Chennai city.
Intearacting with Prime Minister Modi along with the Chief Ministers of many other States through video -conferencing, Palaniswami said similar approach is being adopted in the rest of the State.
He said that so far 33,000 camps have been conducted and 17 lakh people were screened in the Greater Chennai Corporation limit. “We have also established 34 fixed and 10 mobile sample collection centres. So far 8 lakh RT-PCR tests have been done. With the help of 10,000 field workers, 93 NGOs and 2,700 volunteers, symptomatic cases are being identified and vulnerable people are being provided necessary support,” he said.
Apart from deputing IAS and IPS officersā teams for all 15 zones of Greater Chennai Corporation, I have also involved six Ministers to coordinate and supervise the COVID prevention and relief activities, he added.
Palaniswami requested Central government funds to Tamilnadu for procuring high-end ventilators.
Palaniswami also highlighted that Tamilnadu is continuing its strategy of aggressive, targeted testing and is currently conducting the maximum number of PCR tests in the country.
“Tamilnadu presently has 130 labs for COVID testing with 61 Government and 69 private labs, with an average testing capacity of 65,000 tests per day. These tests cost nearly five crore rupees a day. I request Government of India to fund 50 per cent of the cost of the PCR tests from the PM ā CARES fund,” he said.
Palaniswami requested the Central government to give the GST losses from the month of April till June.
He said that Tamilnadu provides effective medical treatment due to which the State has maintained a low death rate, which is now at 1.6 per cent, one of the lowest in the country.
“As on date, 2, 44,675 patients have recovered, which works out to a recovery rate of 80.8 per cent, one of the highest in the country. Among 37 districts, containment measures are being carried out in 36 districts,” he added.
He also reiterated his request to release 55,637 MT of toor dal to theĀ State for distribution till November.
On the economic aspect, Palaniswami said a high level committee has been formed under former RBI Governor C Rangarajan to make recommendations on economic revival measures.