Northeastern states have emerged as a model of Corona management, said DoNER Minister Dr Jitendra Singh on Wednesday.
“If under the Modi government in the last six years Northeast emerged as a model of development, in the last six weeks, Northeast has emerged as a model of Corona management,” said Dr Singh in New Delhi.
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He said the pro-active steps taken by all the northeastern states coupled with the liberal support offered by the Government of India have helped the region to cope up better compared to the rest of India.
He said on April 7, only 32 COVID19 positive cases were found in Northeast following 2,931 COVID19 testing. 2,800 tests were also found negative.
Later on May 18, a total of 291 people were found positive following testing of 60,063 cases and out of that 57,573 were found negative. A total of 142 people were cured and 4 deaths were reported.
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“The success of the measures taken by Northeastern states is evident from the fact that Sikkim and Nagaland do not have a single COVID-19 positive case till date,” said the minister.
“Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram had one patient each, which have since been cured. Meghalaya had 13 cases in a hospital in Shillong due to a foreign traveller, which led to one death, but all others have since recovered,” he said.
With a new COVID19 positive case reported in Garo Hills on Tuesday, Meghalaya has lost its Corona-free state status.
As on Wednesday, four states of Northeast including Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim are COVID19 free.
“The biggest state in Northeast, Assam has a few cases, but the state has handled the epidemic very well and effectively contained it in local areas,” said the DoNER Minister.
As per the latest update, Assam now has 130 active COVID19 cases.
“Similarly, both Manipur and Tripura had 2 cases each, which were cured and the states were declared COVID free, however, in the first week of May due to infected migrants, Tripura has seen a large spurt in cases particularly in CAPFs deployed there,” the minister said.
“Manipur has also seen 5 new cases in last 3-4 days related to migrants,” Dr Singh said.
With new cases registered in Manipur, the state now has 23 active COVID19 cases.
He said the central government has released funds to state governments to fight COVID effectively.
“Central government has so far released a total of Rs 7923.78 crore to the NE states (Arunachal Pradesh – Rs 935.28 crore, Assam – Rs 3090.64 crore, Manipur – Rs 822.22 crore, Meghalaya – Rs 467.02 crore, Mizoram – Rs 493.46 crore, Nagaland – Rs 937.12 crore, Sikkim – Rs 278.30 crore and Tripura – Rs 899.74 crore) since April, 2020 under installments of revenue deficits of April and May 2020, first installment of Central share of State Disaster Response Mitigation Fund (SDRMF) and States Share in Central Taxes,” he informed.