The Centre has kept mum on Puducherry’s plea for funds to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy said on Thursday.
At a virtual press conference, Mr. Narayanasamy said there had been no response to the letters he had written to the Centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking interim assistance of ₹225 crore and a larger package of ₹975 crore as special aid even when the Union Government had sanctioned substantial funds to other States.
The amount provided by the Centre so far to combat the crisis was a mere ₹3 crore, he said. At a time when revenue had declined substantially in the last four months and ₹560 crore GST compensation was due from the Centre, the Puducherry government had to allocate ₹25 crore from within its resources for procuring equipment, ambulances, diagnostic kits and PPEs, Mr. Narayanasamy said.
As the number of cases has been increasing in recent days, the administration would be recruiting additional health manpower as well as procuring 10,000 antigen and RT-PCR test kits, the Chief Minister said.
