VIJAYAWADA: Giving health tips to people for improving their immunity so as to keep coronavirus at bay, Leader of the Opposition and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu has once again appealed to the State government to extend Rs 5,000 aid to poor families to enable them to meet their minimum requirements during the lockdown.
Expressing concern over the steep rise in Covid-19 cases in the State, he urged the government to desist from hiding facts. The State has registered 1,021 per cent rise in the number of corona cases as against India’s average of 222 per cent in the last one week.
This reflects the potentially dangerous situation that requires the government to come forward with a human angle to support the people, he asserted.
Addressing mediapersons online from his residence on Monday, Naidu accused the ruling YSRC of under-reporting of coronavirus cases at a time when other States like Kerala managed to control it by ensuring transparency in testing.
AP should step up testing in order to identify and isolate corona positive cases for prevention of its transmission. He said Kerala conducted 10,200 Covid-19 tests, Karnataka 5,600 and Rajasthan 12,000 so far, but no such data is available with regard to AP.
If the government continues to ignore the seriousness of the pandemic, the State will soon be on the brink of a human disaster, he said.
Stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is reaching out to opposition leaders and experts to prevent the spread of coronavirus, he sought to know why Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is not taking all sections of people, including political leaders, intellectuals, NGOs and people’s organisations into confidence to wage a united fight against Covid-19.
He demanded that like in Delhi, the AP government provide Rs 5,000 aid to all poor families, including the 18 lakh families whose ration cards were cancelled recently.
Demanding the government to pay full salaries to the employees in recognition of their efforts to prevent the spread of corona, he felt that it was unfair on the part of the government, which paid Rs 6,000 crore to contractors recently, to punish poor employees.
He also found fault with YSRC candidates contesting local body elections for taking part in distribution of the government aid to the poor in violation of the election code.
Govt took proactive steps to combat corona: Nani
Responding to the allegations of TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu, Information and Public Relations Minister Perni Venkataramaiah (Nani) said that the AP government is in the forefront in enforcing lockdown and it has taken proactive steps to contain the spread of coronavirus.
“While the entire administration right from the Chief Minister to the workers at the field level are striving relentlessly like the soldiers in the borders to combat Covid-19, the Opposition Leader is making irresponsible comments,” he said.
The government has set up over 20,000 quarantine beds across the State and has successfully traced all the foreign returnees as a measure to prevent spread of coronavirus, Nani said.