New Delhi: The Union Home Ministry on Saturday has directed all the states to use the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) to provide temporary accommodation, food and medical care to migrant labourers stranded in different parts of the country owing to the national lockdown enforced to check the spread of coronavirus.
"States can use SDRF funds to address the issues faced by migrant labourers during the lockdown. The Home Secretary today has again written another letter to all chief secretaries in this connection. We are in constant touch with the states and UTs," said Punya Salila Srivastava, a senior official in the Ministry of Home Affairs. She informed that the Centre has sanctioned Rs 29,000 crore to the states under SDRF for the next fiscal year.
"Apart from funds provided for the current financial year, states can also use Rs 29,000 crore allotted for the next fiscal year to handle the issue of migrant labourers," said Srivastava.
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Thousands of migrants labourers are trying to get back to their native places in the wake of lockdown. "States have been asked to set up tents along the National Highways to house the stranded migrant labourers, if necessary," said Srivastava.
The Home Ministry had earlier asked the states and UTs to provide funds under the National Health Mission (NHM) for procuring COVID-19 related equipment and hospitalisation of patients.
"SDRF funds could be utilised for relief measures like provision for temporary accommodation, food, clothing, medical care for homeless people, including migrant labourers," a letter issued by Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, joint secretary in the Home Ministry said.
The Home Ministry reiterated that States and UTs are also looking into the issue of price hike of essential commodities. "We are assessing the situation. We have already allowed free movement of interstate cargo," said Srivastava.
Meanwhile, the government on Saturday appealed citizens to stay indoors and practise social distancing. "If 100 per cent lockdown and social distancing is ensured, probably we will get positive results in the next few days," said Luv Agarwal, joint secretary in the Health Ministry admitting the fact that the number of positive COVID- 19 cases are rising day by day.
He said that the Health Ministry has set up 150 helpline numbers to help people. "Ministry's website is having crores of views every day... today also, the website got 28 crore views," said Aggrawal.
Meanwhile, Dr Ratan R Gangakhedkar, a senior scientist from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that there is no indication which shows that India has entered into stage 3 of COVID- 19.
The ICMR is now collecting samples from patients suffering from influenza-like symptoms and those admitted to intensive care units with severe respiratory illness such as pneumonia. The initiative of testing patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) is on to determine whether COVID-9 has spread across the community."There is no indication that the disease has spread to the community. However, there are some sporadic instances...," said Dr Gangakhedkar. He said that private laboratories have also started testing COVID-19 samples. "400 samples have been tested by private laboratories. Today, 44 more laboratories have got the approval," said Dr Gangakhedkar.
He also ruled out that there is any medicine against COVID- 19 in the market as of now. " But all sorts of experiments are on, " he said.
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