With India reporting a record daily increase in coronavirus cases on Friday, in addition to almost 10,000 new confirmed cases every day during this week, the Prime Minister will interact with chief ministers of all states and representatives of union territories over a period of two days, i.e. June 16 and 17.
The Prime Minister’s Office’s (PMO) official Twitter handle confirmed the meeting, and also released the schedule. Under this, Modi will interact with chief ministers of Punjab, Assam, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh and all the north-eastern states on June 16. The meeting will be held at 3 pm.
On June 17, the Prime Minister will speak to chief ministers of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Telangana and Odisha.
The interaction comes at a time when multi-fold spike in coronavirus cases has been recorded across the country, especially after the lockdown was eased after May 30, leading to a surge in fresh cases.
The sudden interaction with chief ministers by the Prime Minister, clearly indicates that a clear strategy needs to be drawn up to arrest the spike in fresh cases as many states have been following their own plans to implement the lockdown. The Centre, on its part, offered a relaxation for various services like opening malls and places of worship and allowing hair dressing salons and various other outlets to operate, even though the lockdown is to continue till June 30.
Though Modi keen is to revive the economy, which has been severely dented by the pandemic, the surge in infections has sent the Centre’s plans of gradually bringing back the fiscal situation on the path to normalcy by unveiling the Atmanirbhar Bharat package into a tizzy.
Declared infections are now at over 3 lakh — the fourth highest in the world. Officially, there have been nearly 8,500 coronavirus deaths, although the true number is widely believed to far higher.
On Friday, the Health Ministry said that the number of cases had increased by 10,956 from the previous day, with new infections rife in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, stretching hospitals to breaking point.