TN gives virus relief cash to rationcard holders

CHENNAI: As Tamil Nadu entered the first day of a new 14-day lockdown on Monday to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Chief Minister MK Stalin launched a scheme to distribute the first instalment of Rs2,000 of the Rs4,000 COVID-19 financial assistance scheme for all the 20.7 million ration cardholders in the State.

At his first public function as chief minister, the DMK chief issued tokens to a number of beneficiaries. Tokens are being distributed at the houses of rationcard holders.

The beneficiaries can turn up at ration shops on the given date and time and collect the money.

Food and Civil Supplies Minister R. Sakkarapani said ministers will launch the scheme in their respective districts. The scheme was a DMK poll promise and involves an outlay of Rs41 billion.

Sakkarapani said the entire process would be completed within a week.

Also on Monday, Stalin spoke to Union Minister for Commerce Piyush Goyal on the phone and urged an allocation of at least 20,000 vials of Remdesivir a day to the State.

Tamil Nadu now gets about 7,000 Remdesivir vials a day.

“The needs of government and private hospitals across the State would be catered to only if 20,000 vials of Remdesivir are allocated to Tamil Nadu,” a government media statement said, adding that Goyal said he would consider the request. Meanwhile Industries Minister Thangam Thennarasu said the Sterlite Copper plant in Thoothukudi district will begin producing oxygen from Tuesday. The plant would produce 35 metric tonnes ( MT) of oxygen daily.

“We have asked them to increase production to 70 MT,” the minister said.

Also on Monday, 10,000 police personnel were deployed in the city as the lockdown started.

Director General of Police JK Tripathy instructed police personnel to not use force on people at any cost.

Traffic and local police are told to avoid physical contact with the individuals violating traffic.

Public transport between the districts was completely halted.

Government and private buses, rental cars and autos were completely stopped. At the same time the vehicles for essentials ran as usual.

Due to the complete curfew, the normalcy of the people in all the districts including Chennai was affected.

The Sun TV group owned by the chief minister’s kin have donated Rs300 million to the COVID-19 fight. Sun TV said it will carry out corona prevention work in the state.

“The funds are provided for corona prevention programmes undertaken by the Central and State Governments,” it said.