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‘Have to ensure people don’t spill out on streets after lockdown’: UP CM
The CM interacted with UP parliamentarians and ministers via video-conference from his residence in the morning.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said here on Sunday that the state must prevent people from spilling out on the streets when the lock-down started getting lifted from April 15. “All the hard work the state did would come to a nought if people crowd at the end of the lock-down. So we have to strategise accordingly. Please come up with suggestions to help the government,” said Yogi.
The CM interacted with UP parliamentarians and ministers via video-conference from his residence in the morning.
“We have to keep the situation under control even after the lock-down ends,” he said.
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Nearly, 80 MPs (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) of UP and central ministers attended the video conferencing with parliamentarians and ministers on Sunday. They were connected to Yogi’s home video conferencing system from all over the state and New Delhi.
Some opposition MPs too participated. The Samajwadi Party had nominated Reoti Raman Singh (RS member) while Bahujan Samaj Party was represented by two Lok Sabha members Ritesh Pandey and Ram Shiromani Verma.
The prominent ministers who attended were union women and child welfare minister Smriti Irani, union skill development minister Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey, union urban development minister Hardeep Puri, union labour minister Santosh Gangwar, union surface transport minister General (retd) VK Singh and BJP MPs Dr Mahesh Sharma and Bahuguna Joshi.
The Congress’ lone Lok Sabha member in UP Sonia Gandhi spoke to PM Modi in Delhi when he called her.
The chief minister interacted with the MPs and ministers to seek their cooperation and also to inform them about what the state government did to control the disease.
Yogi said that the Tablighi Jamaat congregation (in Delhi) had dented the state’s hard work in checking spread of Sars-Cov-2 but the government was tackling even that. The MPs and ministers must keep their ears to the ground and inform the state government if they got any clues about those who participated in the congregation (other than those already quarantined).
“The state government had almost succeeded in controlling Sars-Cov-2 in the state, but the Tablighi Jamaat congregation factor damaged the process,” he said.
The 21-day lock-down period announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to check spread of Sars-Cov-2 is scheduled to end on April 15.
“The state government will do a lot of preparation for the strategic ending of the lock-down. Social distancing, a key idea to check spread of the disease, has to be practised even after April 15. We need your cooperation for this as you are in direct touch with people in your areas,” said Yogi.
Updating the participants, Yogi said: “The state saw a total of 275 (positive) cases. Of these 132 cases are related to Tablighi Jamaat. The upswing happened in the past three days. Due to outsiders, the situation turned sensitive. It was a kind of anarchy on their part and we are taking legal action against many of them.”
Yogi informed how the government swung into action after the state reported its first Covid-19 case on March 3. “Then, we did not have even one testing lab. Now we have eight and more would come up in days to come. At the same time, in phases the state created level-1, level-2, and level-3 medical facilities to tackle the positive cases. We have 51 level-2 and 6 (six) level-3 facilities so far across the state. More would come up,” he said.
The chief minister also informed the parliamentarians and ministers about the 11 Sars-Cov-2 tackle committees to deal with different issues--such as medical health, law and order, social security, agriculture, etc.
Seeking help from the MPs and ministers, Yogi said: “Apart from the direct bank transfers for construction labourers, MNREGS (rural employment scheme) beneficiaries and pension beneficiaries, the state intends to send Rs 1,000 each into accounts of daily wagers--such as rickshaw- pullers, vendors and e-rickshaw drivers but we are facing a problem as we do not have information about the bank accounts of all of them. Help us with their bank accounts in your respective areas.”
Yogi also praised legislators’ overwhelming response in contributing their local area funds with generosity to the state to fight Sars-Cov-2.
