Mizoram governor Hari Babu Kambhampati on Thursday praised the state in its fight against COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking at the conference of governors and Lt. governors in New Delhi, Kambhampati said though the pandemic has taken a huge toll on the state’s resources, the response by Mizoram has been unique due to the combined efforts of the state government and the civil society organisations.
He said that the public has been mobilized on a mass level throughout the state with the formation of Task Force at localities and villages.
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These locality and village level task forces incorporate the respective local or village councils (statutory bodies), with enthusiastic participation by the vibrant NGOs and Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), he said.
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The religious bodies have also played leading roles in augmenting the collective efforts led by the state government, he said.
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Public response has been such that even retired doctors have come forth to volunteer their services in the face of this crisis, the governor informed the conference.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Urban has been working constantly in battling further spread of the virus in the cleanliness and sanitation sector, he said.
According to Kambhampati, thousands of police personnel have been deployed for various Covid-19 related duties at international and inter-state borders, quarantine facilities and Covid Care Centres.
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He said that vaccination is being carried on vigorously since the first vaccine was administered on January 26, along with the rest of the country.
In addition to implementing various ongoing Central and State Health Schemes, the State Government signed the US $40 million ‘Mizoram Health Systems Strengthening Project’ with World Bank on June 17, in order to improve management capacity and quality of health services in Mizoram, he said.
The governor said that there has been no major law and order problem except a few incidents along the Mizoram-Assam border.
However, tensions have been defused after a joint statement was signed on August 5 by both states where they agreed to take forward the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Home Affairs and chief ministers of two states to remove tensions prevailing around the inter-State borders, and to find lasting solutions to the disputes through discussions, he said.
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Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the state planning and programme implementation department allocated Rs.99 crores to various Departments for achieving the goals of the state flagship programme-Socio-Economic Development Policy (SEDP) in the fiscal 2021-21, he said.
The governor further mentioned that a cross-border road- Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMMTTP), which aims to connect North-East India with Kolkata through the Sittwe Port of Myanmar via the Bay of Bengal, is nearing completion within the Mizoram side.
When completed, the KMMTTP will provide a valuable alternate route and considerably cut down the distance between the North East and mainland India, which is currently connected only via the narrow Siliguri Corridor in West Bengal, also known as the “Chicken’s Neck,” he said.
He also emphasized that sincere attention should be given to the completion of the project.