New Delhi:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a video conference with chief ministers of all states on Thursday, in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
This was the second such interaction in less than two weeks on the critical issue of the COVID-19 outbreak and related matters, and the first after the Central government imposed a 21-day nationwide lockdown from March 25. The last interaction took place on March 20.
Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa along with his team members briefed about the preparedness taken by the government to cut the spread of disease.
Medical Education Minister who also holds covid-19 ministry Dr K Sudhakar, Health and Family Welfare Minister B Sriramulu, Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai, chief secretary TM Vijay Bhaskar and officials from health department where present during the video conferencing.
Highlights of Video Conference by Prime Minister with Chief Ministers
1. Hon?ble Prime Minister held second video conference with Chief Minister and reviewed the lock down situation in the States and preventive measures taken by the States.
2. He advised Chief Ministers to implement the lockdown effectively without affecting the essential services and deal stringently with curfew violations.
3. He advised to isolate migrant workers and provide basic amenities to them.
4. He appreciated states for effectively implementing lock down by good governance and discipline.
5. The situation in the world due to Covid 19 pandemic is worrying.
6. We should minimise losses and this could be achieved only if we tackle effectively and unanimously.
7. Medicines and essential food items should be maintained and should not be disrupted.
8. Exclusive Covid 19 hospitals shall be notified and people be made aware of this.
9. In coming days, we should not face shortage of doctors and therefore AYUSH doctors shall be roped in and trained online.
10. He advised to popularise AYUSH guidelines to improve immunity.
11. Social distancing must be maintained in banks while people go there to withdraw money transferred under PM-Garib Kalyan Package.
12. Agriculture activities are exempted from lockdown, but farmers should practice social distancing strictly. He suggested to evolve mechanism to conduct harvesting with utmost precautions.
13. Karnataka has already either implemented or following most of the suggestions made by Prime Minister.
14. Nijamuddin Incident:
In Karnataka so far 391 persons have been identified who took part in the event at the masjid in Nijamuddin and have been kept under home/ institutional quarantine. Remaining persons are also being traced. There is a possibility that, they might have gone to various districts to take up religious activities and got stuck there due to lockdown. Therefore district administrations are directed to quarantine them wherever they are and report. This process requires a lot of enquiries and technical efforts.
It has been decided to test all of them. Till now, 91 have been tested in Bidar, out of which 11 have tested positive. In Bengaluru more than 30 have been tested and all are tested negative.
Chief Minister appealed to all religious leaders to cooperate by creating awareness about this pandemic within their community and cooperate with the Government