No decision had yet been taken by the Maharashtra government on a possible lockdown, Health Minister Rajesh Tope said on Wednesday. He, however, warned the public to be mentally prepared for more stringent curbs in the coming days.
“The objective is to avoid large gatherings. We have thus far issued two notifications, on March 15 and March 27, in a bid to ensure pandemic norms are followed,” Mr. Tope said.
The Health Minister refuted reports of bed shortages across hospitals in the State. “There is no such situation where there is a massive shortage of beds, either in Mumbai or in other districts. Yes, there may be specific instances of problems in certain hospitals in a particular district where there is a lot of demand. However, the situation is far from being dire,” said Mr. Tope.
At present, there were 400 ICU beds, 2,160 oxygen beds and 213 ventilator beds available in Mumbai city itself. “Instructions to increase the number of beds have been given to all district administrations,” Mr. Tope said.
He said that if citizens continued to behave irresponsibly and cases continued to rise unabated, then the government would be left with no recourse but to tighten the rules.
Direct cash transfer
Earlier, senior Congressman and former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had said that if the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government (of which the Congress is a part) was indeed contemplating a lockdown, then it must compensate the loss of employment of daily wage labourers with direct cash transfer benefits.
“The government must give prior notice to the general public before implementing a lockdown, if such a situation arises. Furthermore, it must keep the lockdown period as short as possible to keep the wheels of the economy moving,” Mr. Chavan said. During the lockdown period, the government must deposit funds directly to the bank accounts of daily wage earners to keep them afloat, as had been done in Western countries.
“For this, MLAs and MPs can make use of local development funds. Importantly, the government must implement a lockdown in such a way that it avoids affecting the supply chain of farmers and business people by allowing the transport of agricultural and other industrial goods to continue,” Mr. Chavan said.
He criticised the Modi-led government at the Centre for suddenly announcing a lockdown in March last year without any planning. “This thoughtless decision has taken a heavy toll on the country’s economy and pushed more than three crore people in India below the poverty line. Therefore, it is necessary to plan the lockdown in such a way that there is minimum damage to the economy and simultaneously helps break the virus chain,” said the Congress leader.
