Tamil Nadu Covid-19 unlock news live: Stalin meets PM Modi, seeks more Covid-19 vaccine doses for state

Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin on Thursday said he has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide additional doses of Covid-19 vaccine to the state.

People of Chennai and its suburbs are putting off their travel plans and are not taking up job offers following the delay in uploading vaccine certificates on the portal.

The Tamil Nadu State Construction Labourers welfare board is all set to fund the vaccination drive of the labourers across the state. The welfare board has a cash surplus of Rs 3,000 crores which is collected as one per cent cess levied from project sites across the state. It is to be noted that around 12.13 lakh workers are registered with the Labour welfare board of Tamil Nadu which is half of the total labour population of the state. It may be noted that several studies have revealed that construction workers are one of the most vulnerable groups to be infected with Covid-19 virus and that the group comprises labourers drawn from Bihar, Chattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. A senior officer with the labour department told IANS that the department has already placed an order for 2 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines with the Tamil Nadu State Medical Service Corporation.

Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Tamil Nadu are caught in a peculiar situation. Following the lockdown due to the Covid second wave and subsequent relaxations limited to 27 districts, they now face manpower shortage due to a different reason. The industrial estates in the Chennai region, which are gearing up to buzz once again with the unlocking of lockdown conditions, are facing shortage of workers due to lack of public transport. Those in Coimbatore and Tirupur are facing shortage of workers who haven’t returned from other states and districts.

Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin reached New Delhi on Thursday, he is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi later today. The Tamil Nadu chief minister will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi later today and request for more Covid vaccines. Speaking to ANI, Health Minister Ma Subramanian said on June 13, "When Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin meets PM Modi in Delhi next week he will request to provide more vaccine doses to Tamil Nadu."

Customers have over the past three days been flocking to the Ritchie Street area, the city’s hub for electronics and electrical goods, flouting all Covid-19 norms. Retailers from across the city, who form a sizeable part of the clientele, and others end up parking their twowheelers along Anna Salai. Since Monday, when the shops began to function after being closed for more than a month, there has been a mad rush and the association that covers all shop owners directed that no vehicles will be allowed outside shops.

Tamil Nadu construction labourers’ welfare board has decided to fund Covid vaccination of several lakh construction workers in the state. In the first phase, the labour department has placed order for 2 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines with the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation (TNMSC). The drive would be funded by the construction labourers’ welfare board, which has around Rs 3,000 crore deposits with it. The fund has been generated by collecting 1% labour cess on new constructions that happened in the state in the past few years. “The vaccination campaign will be organised at construction sites across the state in a phased manner and we will cover all labourers,” a senior official in the labour department told TOI.

Two days after lockdown norms were relaxed in the city, the Greater Chennai traffic police have booked nearly 11,300 cases of traffic violations. A complete lockdown was enforced in the state from May 10 to June13. From May18, the restrictions were made stringent by city police commissioner Shankar Jiwal and the city was divided into 348 sectors. Public were not allowed to to move from one police station limits to another without valid reasons. In Chennai, 13 check posts were set up. Police also set up153 check points at the borders of each police station's jurisdiction for strict monitoring.

Ever since Tasmac liquor outlets were reopened, government hospitals in Chennai have recorded a surge in the number of cases reported at trauma ward and majority of those admitted were in an inebriated state during admission. For instance at Stanley Medical College Hospital, around 30 surgery cases were reported everyday at the Tamil Nadu Accident and Emergency Care (TAEI) ward. But on Tuesday, more than 200 surgery cases were reported and almost 70% were intoxicated.

Delay in sending text messages and uploading vaccination certificates on the Union government’s CoWIN portal has forced people in Chennai and its suburbs to cancel their air trips, shut shops and defer job offers. A proof of getting vaccination is mandatory for flying to several foreign countries, working at private offices in the and running shops in wholesale markets. But many, even those who got their jabs last month, are yet to get a certficiates or SMS to their registered mobile number. Asha Nair, who took her second dose on May 11 at a government special camp, said that till date the CoWIN portal shows her vaccination status as pending. Her employer has been seeking the proof since June 1. “We don’t know what to do now as there is not even an effective helpline to get the issue sorted,” she said. The existing helpline is more often than not non-responsive.

‘Boom boom mattukarargal’, a nomadic tribe which uses decorated bulls to entertain people, has been finding it difficult to purchase fodder for the animals due to the Covid-induced crisis. But help has now come from Oorvanam, a youth forum that helps animals, which reached out to the bull owners with hay bundles. The decorated bulls, which are a source of livelihood for the tribe settled at Sakkimangalam, are usually taken from one place to another in order to receive help from people. However, this has not been possible due to the pandemic restrictions. There are around 50 bulls, of which 39 are in Sakkimangalam, while the rest are at Kattukaliamman Kovil near Thirumangalam.

Fresh cases in Tamil Nadu dropped to 10,448 on Wednesday with 1,420 cases from Coimbatore and1,123 from Erode. After reporting 270 deaths and 21,058 discharges, there were 1.14 lakh people still under treatment for the viral infection. While Coimbatore and Erode were the only districts to report more than 1,000 new cases, three other districts reported above 500 cases - Salem (693), Chennai (689) and Tiruppur (608). Eleven other districts reported between 200 and 500 cases, five districts reported fewer than 100 cases. Perambalur, which reported 45 cases, had the least number of new cases on Wednesday.

It has been 10 days since the state government fixed price cap on various medical materials required to fight Covid-19 after bringing them under the Tamil Nadu Essential Articles Control and Requisitioning act. But the rule is yet to be implemented by the authorities. The price of N95 mask was capped at Rs 22 and that of surgical mask at Rs 3 and Rs 4 for two ply and three ply respectively. The price of hand sanitizer cannot exceed Rs 110 for 200 ml while that of PPE kit was fixed at Rs 273. Sterile glove was priced at Rs 15 per unit and examination gloves Rs 5.75. However, there has not been much change in the price at which the products are being sold at the retail outlets, say buyers. N95 mask is being sold for not less than Rs 75 in most of the medical shops in Madurai while a two ply mask is being sold at Rs 5 apiece. PPE kits are not available for anything less than Rs 400 apiece, they say.

A 12-year-old lion died of Covid-19 at Arignar Anna Zoological Park at Vandalur on Wednesday morning, authorities said. The big cat, a male named Pathbanathan, is the second lion to die due to the infection at the zoo. The first was a nine-yearold lioness named Neela which died in the evening on June 3. Officials at the zoo said Pathbanathan tested positive for Sars Cov-2 as per the report of the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) in Bhopal received on June 3. Samples were collected from Pathbanathan after five lions in the zoo showed symptoms such as coughing and loss of appetite. The animal, housed in the lion safari area, was under intensive treatment since then and died around 10.15am on Wednesday, said an official release from AAZP.

Madurai Central MLA and finance minister P T R Palanivel Thiagarajan on Wednesday inaugurated three borewells with water tanks in his assembly constituency. The borewells and the plastic tanks were installed in Gopal Iyer Street and Bharathiyar Street in S S Colony and in Ellis Nagar in M Block area. They were set up at a cost of Rs 15 lakh. READ FULL STORY

The Tamil Nadu school education department formed a ten-member panel to prepare the evaluation criteria for state board Class XII students whose exams have been cancelled due to the pandemic. Sources in the school education department said the panel will submit its recommendations within two weeks. The panel headed by school education secretary Kakarla Usha has nine other members. The other members include higher education secretary D Karthikeyan, school education commissioner K Nanthakumar, Madras University vicechancellor S Gowri, director of government examinations C Usharani, SCERT (State Council for Education Research and Training) director N Latha and director of matriculation schools S Karupasamy and three headmasters (one each from govt, govt-aided and private school) A Stella Amalorpava Mary from Tiruppur, U Ganesan from Tirunelveli and H James Sathyaraj from Chennai.