Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Puri on Tuesday said India was able to avoid the fate of other countries when it came to the COVID-19 pandemic due to the “timely and effective” actions taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and among the reasons for a “low” fatality rate was the sanitation eco-system put in place under the Swachh Bharat mission.
Speaking at a Ministry event to release the star rating of garbage-free cities, Mr. Puri said another reason for the COVID-19 “numbers” being low could be that Indians’ immune systems were more adept at dealing with the infection.
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“The pandemic poses serious challenges but because the Prime Minister took timely and effective action in a very far-sighted manner, we have been able to escape the fate that befell many more countries, including advanced industrial democracies,” he stated.
The fatality rate for COVID-19 in the country, which were 3,163 out of 1.01 lakh infections as on Tuesday morning, was about 3%. “The numbers will increase because this is a pandemic but the number of fatalities is 3%, which is very good. And if you analyse that 3%, it has high percentage of pre-existing conditions and comorbidities. Not saying that we should derive satisfaction but this is a tribute to the timely steps the Prime Minister took”, he observed.
The Swachh Bharat mission helped in the country’s efforts against COVID-19 as behavioural changes regarding sanitation and hygiene were made possible through it.
“Why are our numbers low? Not my view, it’s the medical profession. People say that a country like India carries a lot of disease burden because people are used to levels of pollution and impurity and maybe the immune systems in our bodies are more adept at dealing with, that maybe an answer. But it cannot be in isolation...Swachhta is the basis,” he asserted.
While the government would have managed the situation without the scheme, the “cost would have been higher”. “COVID is also an urban problem, by and large. It’s a different matter that some of our brothers and sisters migrate back from urban areas to rural areas, they will be carrying the virus, but it started here,” he said.
Migrant labour issue
On the migrant workers’ crisis, he stated: “Migrant labour problem didn’t start on April 7. It started later when people started making statements that ‘second peak is going to come in June-July’”.
The Ministry accorded top five-star rating to six cities – Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh, Surat and Rajkot in Gujarat, Mysuru in Karnataka, Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra. In addition, 65 cities were given three-star ratings and 70 cities got one-star ratings.
Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry Secretary Durga Shankar Mishra said a total of 1,435 cities had applied for the star-rating, of which 698 cities cleared the desktop assessment. A total of 141 cities were certified during field assessments, which included visits to 5,175 solid waste processing plants.
