Chennai: Tamilnadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to step up the Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness Package to Rs 3,000 crore to strengthen the health infrastructure during this time of corona pandemic.
Palaniswami also urged Mr Modi to sanction an adhoc grant of Rs 1,000 crore from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) immediately to fight the pandemic as the SDRMF Fund was fully exhausted by the State.
In his address at the meeting of Chief Ministers organised by Modi via video-conferencing to review the corona pandemic situation, he said the State government had received Rs 511.64 crore from the Centre in two tranches under the Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness package out of an envelope of Rs 712.64 crore allotted to the State.
“I request this package for Tamilnadu may be stepped up to Rs 3,000 crore as per my earlier request. This will help us to further strengthen our health infrastructure”.
“As we have fully exhausted the State Disaster Response and Mitigation Fund, I also request an ad-hoc grant of Rs 1,000 crore from NDRF immediately to fight the pandemic,” he said, while seeking release of pending CMR subsidy of Rs 1,321 crore at this time to facilitate paddy procurement.
Stating that Tamilnadu was continuing its strategy of aggressive, targeted testing and was currently conducting the maximum number of RT-PCR tests in the country, Mr Palaniswami said from the beginning, the State has been using only RT PCR Test, which was a gold standard test to identify affected persons.
“Tamilnadu presently has 176 labs for COVID testing, with 66 Government and 110 private labs, with an average testing capacity of 85,000 RT-PCR tests per day,” he said.
“As on date, 66,40,058 samples have been tested for Covid-19, out of which 5,52,674 persons tested positive and there are only 46,350 active cases in the State currently,” he said.
He pointed out that these tests cost nearly Rs 6.8 crore a day, the Chief Minister urged the Centre to at least fund 50 per cent of the cost of the PCR tests from the PM–CARES fund as the State was facing financial difficulties for incurring such expenses continuously.
Tamilnadu provides effective medical treatment, due to which the State has maintained a low death rate, which was now at 1.62 per cent, one of the lowest in the country.
As on date, 4,97,377 patients have recovered, which works out to a recovery rate of about 90 per cent, one of the highest in the country.
Palaniswami said because because of the comprehensive action of his Government, the positivity rate in the State has come down from a high of 10.47 per cent in July to 6.2 per cent currently. “As on date, in no district, the positivity rate is above 10 per cent,” Palaniswami said.
He also said the deaths due to Covid have also been reduced from an average of 100 deaths per day to around 70 deaths per day.
“Moreover, the positive cases per day in Chennai have now been reduced below 1000 from around 2,300 in the month of June 2020,” he said, on the steps being taken to control the spread of the pandemic.
Though not connected with the subject, the Chief Minister touched upon the NEET-related quota for government students that grabbed the headlines in Tamilnadu and pointed out to Modi that the State Assembly has unanimously passed a Bill to provide 7.5 per cent internal reservation to the UG medical courses for the NEET qualified students who have studied in State Government schools from this academic year based on the recommendations of the Commission headed by a retired Judge of the High Court.
Now, the Bill has been sent for the assent of Governor Banwarilal Purohit, he said, adding, this is expected to bring equity and social justice to the mostly poor students.