Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold the second round of consultation with chief ministers of various states on Wednesday, on the Covid-19 situation in the country.
On the first day of the consultations, the Prime Ministers told the chief ministers that the Indian economy was witnessing a recovery, and that “cooperative federalism” helped India deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We must focus on both life and livelihood, boost health infrastructure, testing and tracing as well as increase economic activity,” he said.
PM Modi also said that deaths were contained to a minimum and that, with adequate precautions, India could emerge from the battle against the disease with “minimal damage”.
The chief ministers provided feedback about existing health infrastructure in their states and efforts to augment the medical facilities. Tuesday’s interaction included CMs from Punjab, Assam, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Himachal Pradesh among other states.
Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh spoke about micro-containment zones — an idea that found support from the Prime Minister. Singh said that in his state, the authorities were not sealing the entire street or an area if cases were found in a house; they were sealing only a few houses. Modi appreciated the idea and said other states could consider this model for replication.
On the healthcare front, the PM said that timely decisions taken to tackle the pandemic contained the spread of the disease in India. “When India’s fight against Covid-19 will be analysed in the future, this time will be remembered for how we worked together and served as an example of cooperative federalism. We have tried to save each and every life.”
In particular, he highlighted India’s lower case fatality rate compared to the rest of the world, and the recovery rate.
The PM’s comments come at a time when India reported a total of 353,853 cases, with 11,919 deaths.