Chennai: Expressing concern over the rising cases of coronavirus, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday announced Rs 25 lakh compensation each to the families of 43 doctors who had lost their lives while on Covid-19 patient treatment duty. Along with this, he also announced incentives for frontline workers for April, May and June.
As per an official statement, the chief minister said for April, May and June, Rs 30,000 will be given to doctors, Rs 20,000 to nurses and Rs 15,000 to other workers. Moreover, Rs 20,000 will be given as incentives to PG students and trainee doctors.
On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu recorded 29,272 fresh COVID-19 cases in the single biggest day spike so far, pushing the caseload to 14,38,509 while 298 deaths in the last 24 hours took the toll to 16,178. According to a medical bulletin, 19,182 people were discharged, taking the tally to 12,60,150, leaving 1,62,181 active infections.
Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin announced Rs 25 Lakhs each as compensation for 43 frontline workers and families of government doctors who passed away while carrying their duties during #COVID19 pandemic. He also announced incentives for frontline staff for April, May & June.
(file pic) pic.twitter.com/lZYuFcXsLi
— ANI (@ANI) May 12, 2021
With an increase in new infections, Chief Minister M K Stalin appealed to the general public and industries to donate to the Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund to fight against the raging pandemic.
The state capital accounted for 7,466 new infections, totaling 4,04,733 till date. The metropolis also leads in the number of fatalities with 5,368 deaths.
Besides Chennai, Chengalpet added 2,419 cases, Coimbatore 2,650, Thiruvallur 1,204 and Madurai 1,024, while the remaining 31 districts clocked new infections in triple digits.
Among the 298 deceased, 78 were without comorbidities which include a 25-year old man from Coimbatore who succumbed to the virus due to ‘cardio respiratory arrest’.
In a statement, Stalin assured the funds received would be used only for stepping up medical infrastructure like ramping up production of medical oxygen production and storage facilities, purchasing of RT-PCR kits, life saving devices among others.
“The funds collected will be used only to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and the details related to the expenses made (through the funds generated) would be available on a public domain ensuring transparency,” he said.