Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Friday announced in the House that the government will start implementing the first phase of "The Chief Minister’s Covid-19 Affected Livelihood Support Scheme" from Saturday, August 21, 2021.
The Chief Minister’s Covid-19 Affected Livelihood Support Scheme aims to provide direct transfer of Rs 5,000 in two equal instalments (Rs 2,500 per instalment) to every identified family whose livelihood has been directly affected by Covid-19.
Biren was informing the House on the first day of the ongoing monsoon assembly session while responding to the calling attention of Opposition MLA, K Meghachandra Singh who sought the information regarding higher positivity rate of COVID-19 in the state in comparison to national positivity rate.
The state has started discussing providing ex-gratia to the families who have been affected due to COVID-19, however, no one can predict the outcome in the next future, the chief minister said.
The process to provide financial assistance with a sum of Rs 3,500 per month to the children orphaned by COVID-19 has been completed. For auto drivers, van drivers and other daily wage workers, a total of 25,000 beneficiaries were enrolled and the first phase of the transfer of money will start from Friday, said Biren.
Drawing the attention of the chief minister, who is also minister in-charge of Health, opposition MLA, Meghachandra informed the House that till Thursday the count of COVID-19 deaths has reached 1,732. Due to lack of proper infrastructure of healthcare units, especially in hilly regions of the state, people have been succumbing to COVID-19 infection.
According to COVID State Health Directorate, it is reported that the positivity rate is 12.6 per cent, he said, adding that many COVID-19 infected persons are also dying and there are no reports in the authority concerned. There might be many cases of unclaimed COVID-19 deaths, however, the state government has not highlighted such cases. To control the pandemic, the state government also needs to find out the number of such cases immediately.
Responding to the calling attention moved by opposition MLA, Meghchandra, leader of the House, N Biren said that investigation on the data of unclaimed COVID-19 deaths has already been started and will be given to the opposition MLA in white paper on the next seating of the session.
He said that at present the state has better equipment to fight the pandemic for the present stage. However, none can predict the impact and exact outcome, so the state is also cautious and has been discussing precautionary measures to be taken in future.
The state has been taking various initiatives in order to control the pandemic. Various doctors, nurses and others have been recruited and the number of ambulances has been increased, said the CM.
He further said that six oxygen plants will be made operational soon in the hill districts, of which three have been inaugurated. For the other 12 districts, the state is fully prepared to set up the oxygen plants.
He also appealed to the people for early vaccination as it is the only way to prevent the severe impact of the COVID-19 infection. About 60 per cent of the entire population has been vaccinated and around 7 lakh populations are yet to be vaccinated, he said.
