UP targets Rs 1,000 cr corpus in recently created Covid Care Fund

CM Yogi Adityanath exhorts private companies for CSR funding

The Uttar Pradesh government is targetting a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore in its recently instituted Covid Care Fund to contain the spread of the pandemic.

The dedicated fund has been created in addition to the existing UP Chief Minister Distress Relief Fund to expend on medical equipment, testing kits, hospital infrastructure, telemedicine, health education, personal protection equipment (PPE), masks etc focussed around coronavirus.

CM Yogi Adityanath has now appealed to all the state legislators to contribute Rs 1 crore and a month’s salary to the Covid Care Fund. He has also called upon for generous contributions from the general public, and the private sector under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for the new Fund.

“The chief minister has set the target of the Covid Care Fund generate total funding of Rs 1,000 crore,” UP additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi told the media here this evening.

Recently, the state had disbursed Rs 1,139 crore to the 75 districts for the expenditure on medical purchases under different heads against coronavirus and more funds would be provided on demand.

Meanwhile, Adityanath thanked former UP CM Mayawati for her advisory to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) legislators to cooperate with the state in the collective fight against coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the government has identified more than 1,300 Tablighi Jamaat attendees hailing from Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut, Bareilly, Prayagraj, Gorakhpur, Agra, Gautam Budh Nagar (Noida) etc. Of these, 1,000 have been screened and quarantined.

Besides, 306 foreigners, who had attended the Jamaat convention in Delhi, have also been identified, of which the passport of 228 have been confiscated. “The police have filed 36 first information reports (FIR) in this regard,” Awasthi informed.

Additionally, the police have filed 8,287 FIRs and booked more than 26,844 persons under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for defying the lockdown orders pertaining to the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897.

Nearly a million vehicles were also checked, of which 208,000 were challaned and Rs 4.10 crore recovered in fine from offenders.

Meanwhile, the government has identified 50 private hospitals, of which 22 are situated in smaller towns, for conversion into dedicated coronavirus hospitals on a five-day notice, UP medical, health and family welfare principal secretary Amit Mohan Prasad said.

So far, 227 coronavirus positive cases have been identified across 27 districts in UP, of which 21 had been discharged after treatment. Of the positive cases, 94 pertain to the Tablighi Jamaat alone.

Currently, more than 358,000 and 24,000 persons are in-home quarantine in rural and urban areas respectively, while 80,200 others, mostly migrant labourers, have been housed in 2,231 temporary community shelter homes.

Besides, of the 57,963 persons who had come to UP from foreign countries, 41,506 had served their mandatory 28 day surveillance period, Prasad informed.