Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy on Sunday mooted restoration of some of the lockdown restrictions to prevent COVID-19 cases spiralling out of control.
Addressing a press conference, Mr. Narayanasamy said that the measures to be taken would be decided at a meeting on Tuesday.
Expressing despair over the failure to adhere to physical distancing or PPE norms in public places, he urged the public and the trading community to proactively adopt measures to help the administration in checking the spread of the pandemic.
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With the number of active COVID-19 cases increasing every day, the government has been hardpressed to increase the strength of doctors, nurses, ASHA workers and ANMs in the government hospitals and to procure equipment such as testing kits and medicines. The government will appoint doctors and other medical personnel on a contract basis to augment health manpower to tackle the pandemic, the Chief Minister said.
Hits out at Centre
Mr. Narayanasamy slammed the Centre for failing to release funds to Puducherry and other States to tackle the pandemic crisis.
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Pointing out that the Centre was duty-bound to bail out the states during the current alarming situation, the Chief Minister said the failure to provide funds was causing great hardships to Puducherry.
The UT which had already suffered drastic decline in revenue because of the lockdown was in crisis because of the lack of fund support or GST payment from the Centre.
The Centre should focus not only on States where the COVID-19 situation is alarming but also help States or UTs like Puducherry which had been doing a relatively good containment job, Mr. Narayanasamy said.
Mr. Narayanasamy said he would flag the financial crunch faced by the administration at the video conference convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chief Ministers of various states on June 16-17.