The spread of COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu has been brought “under control”, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami said on Saturday.
Attributing the situation to a combination of steps taken by the State government in the last five months, the Chief Minister, in his concluding remarks at the ninth video-conference with Collectors since March 26, said the reduction in the spread had been achieved by testing of 75,000 samples every day through RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction) and providing treatment at hospitals to those having symptoms. The Collectors should give priority to areas where the degree of infection was greater than in other parts, besides taking steps for more testing.
Inaugurating the conference in the morning, Mr. Palaniswami said that as of now, the State’s recovery rate was 85.45%, with 3,49,682 persons having been cured of the disease, the “highest” in the country. The case mortality rate was 1.7%, the “lowest” in the country.
He urged the Collectors to intensify execution of precautionary measures before the northeast monsoon sets in and ensure that there was no accumulation of garbage or solid waste in urban areas.
The State government had so far allocated over ₹7,162 crore towards measures aimed at containing the spread of the disease, treatment and relief. As many as 46 lakh reusable masks were distributed in Chennai and 72.56 lakh masks in the rest of the State.
Agricultural activity was being taken up in a full-fledged way. This year, 4.11 lakh acres had been covered during the current ‘kuruvai’ season, against the target of 3.5 lakh acres.
Against the usual procurement of 23 lakh tonnes of paddy, 30 lakh tonnes had been procured through the government-run outlets, which was “a record”, Mr. Palaniswami said.
During the pandemic, the government had signed 42 memoranda of understanding, involving an investment of ₹31,464 crore, with a potential to generate 69,712 jobs. It had set apart ₹200 crore under the COVID-19 Relief & Upliftment Scheme to mitigate the hardship of micro, small and medium enterprises.
The State had obtained sanction for around ₹7,518 crore under the Central government’s loan scheme for industrial units as a result of his [the Chief Minister’s] holding State-level bankers’ committee meetings and call for immediate disbursal of loans to industry, Mr. Palaniswami said.
