E-Paper
Assam to give financial aid to those stranded outside due to lockdown
The assistance will be provided to those from poor and lower-middle class families who are employed outside the state or had gone for short visits.
The Assam government on Monday decided to provide financial aid to those people from the state stranded across India due to the lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus.
Assam health and finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the assistance will be provided to those from poor and lower-middle class families who are employed outside the state or had gone for short visits.
“We have been getting lot of queries regarding people who are facing hardships because of the lockdown. Since now it seems the lockdown will get extended, we decided to reach out to them,” he said.
Follow coronavirus latest updates here.
Sarma added that there is no record of how many such people from the state could be stranded outside at present. He surmised that the figure could be anywhere between 50,000 to 4 lakh.
Those in need will have to give a missed call to 9615471547 to get assistance. Once that is done they will a get voice mail and an SMS giving a link to update their details and bank information.
No decision has been taken yet on what amount would be provided as assistance. Sarma said that the figure will be decided in the next few days based on the number of calls received.
Till now 21 people from Assam stranded abroad have been given $1000 each. Next instalment of same amount will be released on April 25. The assistance is being given to those who went on short trips and not to those working or studying abroad.
The Assam government has also provided Rs 25,000 as interim financial help to each of the 213 cancer, kidney, heart and liver transplant patients from the state who went for treatment to different places in the country and got stranded due to the lockdown.
Till now Assam has recorded 30 Covid-19 positive cases. While 29 patients are recovering in hospitals across the state, one patient died last week at the Silchar Medical College Hospital.
Sarma said that till Monday tests had been conducted on 3209 samples out of which 3070 cases were negative, 30 cases positive and results awaited for 109 samples.
As on Monday Assam had 85,582 PPE kits, 91,000 N95 masks and 50.64 lakh, triple layer masks. The government has decided to give 3 triple-layer masks each to tea-garden workers who have joined duty.
