Five Northeast States are Corona free

 

New Delhi: Five out of eight Northeast States are Corona free while the other three States have not added any new Corona positive case in the last few days. This was disclosed on Monday by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh, after a review meeting through video conference.

The meeting was attended by senior officers from North Eastern Council (NEC) Shillong as well representatives of different government bodies and PSUs including North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation (NERAMC), North East Handicraft & Handloom Development Corporation (NEHHDC), North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd (NEDFi), Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre (CBTC) from their respective places.

Briefing the media, Singh expressed satisfaction that whereas in the last six years Northeast has emerged as a model of developmental transformation, in the wake of the present COVID crisis, it has emerged as a model of effective, diligent and disciplined health management.

Elaborating further, he said, five North Eastern States of Sikkim, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura are totally Corona free, while three other states including Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram had 8, 11 and 1 Corona positive cases respectively, which are waiting to become negative, while no new cases were added till last night. He congratulated the State governments of the North Eastern region, their Chief Ministers and also the officials in the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) and North Eastern Council (NEC) for ensuring perfect coordination, which had made this possible.

Singh also informed about the proposals received and under consideration from different North Eastern States like Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur for new health related projects devoted to management of infections and Corona care, critical care and upgraded healthcare. These projects will be dealt with priority, he said. In addition, he informed that the Ministry of DoNER had placed Rs 25 crore at the disposal of North Eastern States in the initial stage itself, much before the lockdown, as gap-funding for corona related activities.

During the meeting, Singh also received update about various economic activities in the recent days in the exempted areas, as per the Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines, which primarily included the Bamboo related activities.