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Coronavirus outbreak LAST updates: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will address a press conference at 4pm on Friday. Details of the third tranche of the Rs 20 lakh crore Center economic rescue package will be announced.
The second tranche, announced Thursday, focused on migrant workers, street vendors, small merchants, freelancers, and small farmers.
The World Bank approved $ 1 billion for India as a social security technology fund for the country’s poor working and urban migrants. The goal will be to allow India to integrate all of its more than 400 social security schemes at the technological level, the bank said.
Hindustan Times quoted Junaid Ahmad, World Bank country director, as saying: “The project will be crucial to rebalance social security towards the urban poor as well as the rural poor.”
India recorded 81,970 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Friday after 3,995 more positives across the country in the past 24 hours. The COVID-19 figure was 2,649 with 100 more patients succumbing to the infectious disease.
Of the total of 81,970, there are 51,401 active cases, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Indian navy ship INS Jalashwa will sail again from Male, the capital of the Maldives, on Friday to repatriate some 700 residents of Kerala and Lakshadweep under the Samudra setu mission.
The activities prior to boarding have started and people are transported from different points in Malé to the airport where emigration and medical check-ups will take place, etc. The boat will depart in the afternoon.
At least two migrant workers died, 14 were seriously injured in a car accident in Jalaun, Uttar Pradesh on Thursday night, according to media reports. The incident occurred when a DCM carrying migrant workers was hit by a vehicle in the village of Girthan located on the NH-27 in the Etah Police Station area, TV9 reported.
The report also mentioned that one woman was among the two dead of the total of 46 migrant workers in the DCM vehicle. All of the wounded have been admitted to Government Medical College Orai.
The Maharashtra government has requested an extension of the state’s lockdown until May 31, and is likely to send a report on the matter to the Center by Friday.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Uddhav Thackeray held a meeting with state cabinet ministers to discuss the state of COVID-19 in the state and the measures to be implemented to contain the rapidly spreading virus.
According to a high-ranking minister, a consensus was reached on the fact that the blockade should be extended in certain parts of the State, especially in red areas such as the metropolitan regions of Mumbai and Pune, Malegaon and Solapur.
The Hindu quoted the minister as saying: “It was also agreed that the blockade should be strictly enforced from now on in red zones, especially in containment areas. At the same time, more relaxation could be given in the orange and green zones,” he added. The recommendation will be sent to the Center on Friday.
Maharashtra reported 1,602 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, the highest peak in a single day so far, bringing the state’s overall count to 27,524, according to data from the state health department.
With 44 deaths recorded today, the number of deaths in Maharashtra due to contagious coronavirus disease has now passed the 1000 mark and stands at 1019.
The number of deaths from COVID-19 disease increased to 2,549 and the number of cases increased to 78,003 on Thursday, registering an increase of 134 deaths and 3,722 infections in the last 24 hours since Wednesday morning, according to the Ministry of Union Health.
The number of active COVID-19 cases was 49,219, while 26,234 people recovered and one patient migrated, he said.
Meanwhile, the Union’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, addressed the media for the second day in a row and explained more details about the Rs 20 center lakh-crore special economic package. She said the second tranche of the economic stimulus package will be for the benefit of migrant workers, street vendors and small farmers.
FM Announces Concessional Credit for Farmers, Free Food Grains for Migrants
Sitharaman announced on Thursday a package of Rs 3.16 lakh crore that includes free food grains for migrant workers, Rs 2 lakh crore of concessional credit for small farmers and working capital loans for street vendors in a bid to help affected by the national blockade.
Along with the Rs 5.94 lakh crore package on Wednesday, which mostly comprised an off-budget line of credit and support for small businesses, parallel banks and electricity distribution companies, the government unveiled plans for Rs 9 lakh crore from the Rs 20 lakh crore package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will heal Asia’s third largest economy which was seen plunging into its first full-year contraction in four decades.
Representative image. AP
Sitharaman said that each of the eight crore migrant workers, who had to leave their workplaces after the imposition of the blockade on March 25, will get 5 kg of grains and 1 kg of free vegetables for two months.
In addition, 50 lakh street vendors who became unemployed when the government ordered them to stay home would receive a working capital loan of Rs 10,000 each to restart their businesses.
For farmers, the finance minister announced a concessional loan of Rs 2 lakh crore through Kisan Credits Cards, benefiting up to 2.5 crore farmers.
However, Congress criticized the economic package as a “jumla” saying that so far it has been far below what Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised and that the entire finance minister press conference was a classic display of ” arrogance, ignorance and callousness. “
The party’s chief spokesman, Anand Sharma, said the country believed Modi was serious when he made the “dramatic” announcement to give 10 percent of GDP as a package to revive the economy and support migrant workers and that expectations had soared.
“The finance minister’s announcement dashed all hopes,” he said.
Deaths and cases by state
India has reported a total of 134 deaths since Wednesday morning, of which 54 were in Maharashtra, 29 in Gujarat, 20 in Delhi, 9 in West Bengal, seven in Madhya Pradesh, four in Rajasthan, three in Tamil Nadu, two in Telangana and Karnataka and one in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh.
Of the 2,549 deaths, Maharashtra tops the list with 975 deaths, Gujarat is second with 566 deaths, followed by Madhya Pradesh in 232, West Bengal in 207, Rajasthan in 121, Delhi in 106, Uttar Pradesh in 83, Tamil Nadu in 64 and Andhra Pradesh at 47.
The toll reached 34 in Telangana, 33 in Karnataka and 32 in Punjab on Thursday. Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir have reported 11 deaths each due to respiratory disease, while Bihar has recorded seven and Kerala has reported four deaths.
Jharkhand, Chandigarh and Odisha have recorded three COVID-19 deaths each, while Himachal Pradesh and Assam have reported two deaths each. Meghalaya, Uttarakhand and Puducherry have each reported one death, according to ministry data.
According to the ministry’s website, more than 70 percent of deaths are due to comorbidities.
According to data from the Ministry of Health updated in the morning, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country is Maharashtra with 25,922, followed by Gujarat with 9,267, Tamil Nadu with 9,227, Delhi with 7,998, Rajasthan with 4,328, Madhya Pradesh with 4,173. and Uttar Pradesh at 3,729.
The number of COVID-19 cases has increased to 2,290 in West Bengal, 2,137 in Andhra Pradesh and 1,924 in Punjab. It has increased to 1,367 in Telangana, 971 in Jammu and Kashmir, 959 in Karnataka, 940 in Bihar and 793 in Haryana.
Kerala has reported 534 cases of coronavirus so far, while Odisha has 538 cases. A total of 187 people have been infected with the virus in Chandigarh and 173 in Jharkhand.
Tripura has reported 155 cases, Assam has 80 cases, Uttarakhand has 72, Himachal Pradesh has 66 cases, Chhattisgarh has 59, and Ladakh has registered 43 cases so far.
33 cases of COVID-19 have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Meghalaya and Puducherry have recorded 13 cases each, while Goa has seven COVID-19 cases.
Manipur has two cases. Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Dadra and Nagar Haveli have reported one case so far.
Doubling time has slowed to 13.9 days, says health minister
The doubling time of new coronavirus cases has been reduced to 13.9 days in the last three days and India now has a capacity of 1,00,000 COVID-19 tests per day with almost 20 lakh carried out so far, said the Minister of Union Health, Harsh Vardhan.
Vardhan, who visited the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) in Delhi and dedicated a COBAS 6800 test machine to the nation, said that 14 states and Union territories have not reported any cases of the new coronavirus in the past 24 hours.
These states and UT are Gujarat, Telangana, Jharkhand, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Puducherry.
Furthermore, Daman and Diu, Sikkim, Nagaland and Lakshadweep have not reported any cases so far.
Meanwhile, the government decided to use a one-time RT-PCR-based co-sampling for COVID-19 detection of migrant workers and returnees abroad held in quarantine facilities.
The same test technique would also be used to monitor in green zone districts that have not reported cases so far or in the last 21 days, the health ministry said in issuing “Guidelines for pooled sampling based on RT-PCR for migrants / returnees from abroad / green areas “.
806 shramik special trains put into operation so far, says Railways
The Railways has operated 806 shramik Special trains since May 1, transporting home 10 lakh migrant workers who were stranded in various parts of the country due to the blockade caused by the coronavirus, officials said Thursday. Of these, Uttar Pradesh received the maximum number of trains followed by Bihar, they said.
“As of May 14, 2020, a total of 806 ‘shramik Special trains from various states across the country have been put into operation. More than 10 lakh passengers have reached their home state.
“The railways are being operated by the Railways only after the state that sends the passengers and the state that is receiving them agree,” the railways said.
Of the 806 trains that have been operated so far, 166 are in transit while 640 have ended at various stations. Sixty-three more are in process, an official said.
These 806 trains ended in various states such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Mizoram, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttahand and West Bengal.
With PTI inputs
Update date: May 15, 2020 12:38:32 IST
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