Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday said the COVID-19 situation in the State had so far been manageable due to the strict imposition of lockdown and the cooperation of the people.
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He said it had become essential now to ease some of the restrictions but that did not mean that people could be allowed to violate the safety protocols. He termed as ‘unfortunate’ the large number of violations being reported.
The Chief Minister, who was responding to questions during the Facebook live, said on last Friday alone, 4,600 challans had been imposed for failure to wear mask in public, 160 for spitting and around two dozen for not adhering to social distancing norms.
“Such irresponsible behaviour could not be permitted as it could push Punjab on the same path as many other States,” he said, pointing out that with 2.5% of the country’s population, the State was currently contributing a mere 0.5% of the cases.
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Responding to a complaint of exorbitant charges by private hospitals, the Chief Minister said he will ask the medical department to check, but urged people to go to the government hospitals which were equipped with the best-in-class facilities and staff.
On the Central government’s agriculture reforms announcement, the Chief Minister said his government will take tough measures to counter the move to obstruct the smooth agricultural marketing processes that had worked successfully for 60 years. He said he will write to the Prime Minister who he said should understand the farmers’ problems, having himself been the Chief Minister of the agricultural Gujarat. Expressing concern over the Centre’s clear intent to do away with the Minimum Support Price regime, Captain Amarinder said the Punjab government will fight any such move tooth and nail and will not allow the interests of its farmers, who had given the nation its food security, to be compromised in any manner.
Also read: Coronavirus lockdown | Punjab staring at ₹50,000 crore loss this year, says Amarinder Singh
The State recorded 93 COVID-19 cases on Sunday and reported one more death taking the tally to 51, according to an official statement.
The number of positive cases has reached 2,608. The patient who died was from Ludhian district. The major chunk of cases, 35 and 23, were reported from Amritsar and Jalandhar districts respectively. The Health department said the active cases are 451 and 2,106 patients have so far been cured.
