PM Modi to hold meet with CMs as infections rise

New Delhi Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold an emergency meeting with chief ministers of all states on Thursday in the wake of the surge in coronavirus cases in most parts of the country

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold an emergency meeting with chief ministers of all states on Thursday in the wake of the surge in coronavirus cases in most parts of the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi.(ANI)

The upcoming virtual meeting comes just three weeks after his interaction – of the shortest interval – with the chief ministers on March 17 to discuss the progress in vaccination and measures to tackle the second wave in some parts of the country.

While the country registered 35,871 fresh cases on March 17, it breached the one-lakh mark for the first time with 103,558 cases on Sunday. The overall tally stood at 12,589,067 on Monday, according to the Union health ministry.

In the upcoming meeting, the Prime Minister is expected to emphasise the strict enforcement of Covid-19 protocols and check the fatigue that has set in after a year’s tackling of the pandemic, an official who is familiar with the development said, preferring anonymity. A presentation is likely to be made on the rapid surge in cases and the trend of the latest outbreak, the official added.

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Following the March 17 meeting, the vaccination programme was widened to cover citizens above the age of 45. The inoculation of this latest priority group began on April 1.

Modi and the chief ministers are also likely to discuss how to hasten the vaccination drive, on Thursday, the official cited above said.

On Sunday, the Prime Minister held an internal review on the Covid situation.

A meeting between cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba and officials of 11 “states of grave concern” were also held last Friday. During this interaction, the states were given a 19-point action plan that included increased Covid testing to bring down the positivity rate to 5 per cent or less, conducting 70 per cent of the tests using RT-PCR method and creation of more containment zones.

In the same meeting, Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla had expressed anguish over the situation and observed that even amid the spike in cases, none of the states and Union territories had shown “commensurate increase in enforcement of containment activities. Dr V K Paul, member of NITI Aayog, emphasised that states follow a protocol for sharing clinical and epidemiological data for a detailed of the mutant strains of the virus.