A multi-party meeting convened by the DMK on Thursday urged the government to give ₹1 crore as solatium to families of persons who died of COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu.
At the meeting held through video-conferencing, leaders also demanded special pay and pay hike to government employees and medical professionals involved in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. “Families of government employees who die while on duty [battling the pandemic] should be given ₹1 crore compensation. The present compensation of ₹10 lakh is not adequate,” said a resolution adopted in the meeting chaired by DMK president M.K. Stalin.
Contending that the 32,371 quarantine wards, 5,934 emergency wards and 3,371 ventilators were not adequate, the meeting said that it was a matter of concern that the State government had given up its rights to purchase medical equipment. “The State should procure them on a war footing and the Centre should not remain a mute spectator,” another resolution said.
Those at the meeting also made a strong case for distributing ₹5,000 to all ration cardholders, saying that the lockdown had deprived farmers, fishermen, weavers and unorganised workers of their livelihoods. “The Centre should release ₹15,000 crore, demanded by the State government,” the resolution said.
Leaders of parties including Congress, MDMK, CPI-M, CPI, VCK, MMK and IJK, who participated in the virtual meeting, alleged that even though the disease spread in China as early as December 2019, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced emergency measures, the BJP government at the Centre failed to take note of the situation seriously.
“Even after the disease spread in Kerala, the Centre did not take precautionary measures. It spent time on arrival of U.S. president Donald Trump and toppling of the [Congress] government in Madhya Pradesh,” the leaders said, and condemned the denial of permission for the ‘all-party’ meeting, in which leaders of 11 parties participated.
