Covid deaths low, green shoots in economy: Modi

NEWDELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that the Indian economy was witnessing a recovery, “cooperative federalism” helped India deal with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, deaths were contained to a minimum and that, with adequate precautions, India could emerge from the battle against the disease with “minimal damage”.

Speaking at the beginning of a two-day meeting with chief ministers — the sixth such meeting on the pandemic between the Centre, and states and Union Territories — the PM reiterated that the national priority must be to protect both lives and livelihoods.

“We must focus on both life and livelihood, boost health infrastructure, testing and tracing as well as increase economic activity,” he said.

The chief ministers provided feedback about existing health infrastructure in their states and efforts to augment the medical facilities.Tuesday’s interaction included CMs from Punjab, Assam, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Himachal Pradesh among other states, according to a statement.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh spoke about micro-containment zones — an idea that found support from the Prime Minister. Singh said that in his

› Despite our large population, we have minimised the deaths and our recovery rate is 50%. That has become a point of discussion across the world

NARENDRA MODI, Prime Minister

state, the authorities were not sealing the entire street or an area if cases were found in a house; they were sealing only a few houses. Modi appreciated the idea and said other states could consider this model for replication.

On the health care front, the PM said that timely decisions taken to tackle the pandemic contained the spread of the disease in India. “When India’s fight against Covid-19 will be analysed in the future, this time will be remembered for how we worked together and served as an example of cooperative federalism. We have tried to save each and every life.”