Coronavirus / Govt sanctions ₹15,000 crore package to combat coronavirus

New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday sanctioned Rs 15,000 crore to the states to fight the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed 166 lives in the country.

Out of the total corpus, Rs 7, 774 crore will be utilised for Covid-19 emergency response and rest for medium-term support (1-4years) to be provided under mission mode approach.

The focus areas will be: development of diagnostics, covid-19 dedicated treatment facilities, centralised procurement of essential medical equipment and drugs required for treatment of infected patients, strengthen and build resilient national and state health systems to support prevention and preparedness for future disease outbreaks.

The centre has constituted 10 high-level multi-disciplinary central teams to help states from where high number of cases is being reported. The teams have been rushed to Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh, to aid them in containment preparedness, hospital preparedness and ventilator management.

Along with other central government ministries, the railway ministry has also pitched in by offering to convert 5000 coaches into isolation facilities that would give 80,000 additional beds. Of the 5000 coaches, 3250 coaches have been already converted into isolation facilities. “Apart from that the railways has earmarked and deployed at least 2,500 doctors, 35,000 paramedics, 586 health units, 45 sub-divisional hospitals, 56 divisional hospitals, 8 production unit hospitals and 16 zonal hospitals,” said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, health ministry.

India is currently under a three-week nationwide lockdown till April 14 to stem the spread of the infection.

Earlier today, the Reserve Bank of India, in its Monetary Policy Report, said the outlook for India’s economic recovery has been sharply altered by the coronavirus outbreak.

“Prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, the outlook for growth for 2020-21 was looking up. The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically altered this outlook. The global economy is expected to slump into recession in 2020, as post-Covid projections indicate,” the RBI said.