Arunachal Pradesh government has augmented its resources to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Giving information on the preparations, Chief Minister Pema Khandu in a statement on March 31 informed that all 26 deputy commissioners have been given funds to tackle the current situation. “Each DCs have been provided Rs 12 lakh from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) totalling Rs 3.12 crore to deal with this pandemic,” a statement from the Chief Minister’s Office said.
A separate fund of Rs 1.30 crore has been released from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to all district Superintendent of Police (SPs) to tackle the pandemic.
In order to empower the district administrations to fight against Coronavirus pandemic, the funds under Mukhya Mantri Rogi Kalyan Kosh (MMRKK) of around Rs 15 crore have been released to all 26 district in Arunachal Pradesh. The guidelines of the MMRKK have been relaxed to the extent that 80 per cent of funds at the disposal of the districts can be used for procurement of medicines, consumables and equipment.
The remaining 20 per cent would be utilized for conducting health camps and engaging doctors/retired doctors/para medics/retired para medics/contingency staff for next three months period.
Meanwhile, the state government in order to strengthen the public health system and ensure concrete preparedness against COVID-19 has appealed the retired health professionals to volunteer for reserve staff to supplement the current human resources and staffing shortages in the state. The interested health professionals have been requested to contact the Director of Health Services at Naharlagun.
“With the steep rise in the number of COVID-19 cases everywhere, proper precautionary measures have been put in place in the state. The Frontline Response Team deployed all over the state is dealing with COVID-19 suspects for which PPEs have been supplied. A total of 10,000 N95 masks from HLL, 300 VTMs from ICMR and 30 thermal scanners reached the state on March 31 and distribution is underway,” the CMO added.
In order to meet up the shortage of medical equipments due to the lockdown, a special chartered Cargo flight is being arranged by state government from New Delhi to Guwahati on Wednesday to ferry essential medical equipments like surgical masks, PPEs with all accessories and other stuffs for the state. Medical items for sanitization have also been ferried in to the state.
State-run helicopters has been put into service to deliver all essential ration commodities to people living in far-flung areas which are not connected by roads. First such helicopter sortie was made to Vijaynagar in Changlang district on March 31 and another five sorties have been planned for the week.
As preparedness measures, ICU with ventilators have been set up in TRIHMS. Isolation wards and quarantine rooms have been identified in all the districts besides helpline and control room working round the clock, said CM in his statement.
Arunachal Pradesh has not reported any COVID-19 positive case yet.
