Leader of the house and Chief Minister Nagaland Neiphiu Rio put forth a statement on COVID -19 Pandemic at the sixth session of the thirteenth assembly session on 13th August 2020.
Rio in his statement said that the COVID -19 Pandemic has swept the world including our country in the last 6 months infecting millions of people and causing thousands of deaths. Rio also stated that unlike other states Nagaland remained relatively free from the Novel Corona virus in the initial phase giving precious time for the state to be prepared. Rio also highlighting the current status of positive COVID cases in state remarked that ‘so far there are no cases where we cannot trace the source and hence Health and Family Department is of the view that there is no community transmission in Nagaland’.
CM said that the frontline workers, doctors and nurses, district administration and police, NSDMA, Municipal authorities, other essential services departments are working 24x7 to deal with multiple challenges brought on by the Pandemic. Rio also said that they are working in close coordination with Tribal Hohos, Mass based civil society organizations, Church organizations and countless volunteers who are giving their invaluable services to handle the crisis.
Rio also said that the focus is on improving and upgrading the health infrastructure as well as creating and running quarantine centers, COVID hospitals and COVID Care centers. He added that the government not only created sufficient testing capacities in the state in record time, but also substantially augmented the number of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel besides roping in private hospitals to supplement the government effort in dealing with the crisis.
Rio said that more than 62 crores have been spend for improving the medical infrastructure and putting in place systems, equipments and manpower for winning the battle against the pandemic. He said that getting resources has been tough given our overall constraints and reduction in the revenues due to pandemic and lockdown. He further added that various other non-medical interventions like relief to stranded people, distribution of food and dry rations to migrants, needy people; preparation of quarantine- centers and the entire quarantine arrangements, transport- arrangements for bringing our people back, IEC activities the total expenditure stands at around Rs 74 crores. The total expenditure taking both the medical and non radical interventions comes to about Rs 139 crores, out of which the State Government from its own sources has spent about 112 crores (this includes about 3.35 crones from CMRF), Rio said.
He appealed to the people not to panic and not to stigmatize those who might unfortunately get infected nor our frontline workers who are selflessly working day and night to keep us safe from the disease. Rio further urged the people to take necessary health precautions at individual, family and community levels and follow the government advisories.
(Esuihangle, IA)