Rising Covid-19 cases in Rajasthan no cause for worry, says Ashok Gehlot

india

Updated: Apr 29, 2020 19:51 IST

Rajasthan’s Covid-19 cases which have breached the 2000-mark is not a cause of concern since the state government is working round-the-clock to ensure not a single positive case remains undetected, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said on Wednesday.

The total number of coronavirus cases in Rajasthan stands at 2,364 with 51 deaths, according to Union Health Ministry data.

“There is no need to worry if the total number of Covid-19 cases rise. The state wants that nobody with the disease should go unnoticed,” Gehlot told news agency PTI.

The chief minister also informed about the various measures taken by the state government to control the spread of the disease, mitigate the problems of those severely affected by the nationwide lockdown and the huge impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Rajasthan’s economy as well as on tourism.

The state’s revenue is dwindling in the wake of the nationwide lockdown and the Centre is yet to act on Rajasthan’s demand to release outstanding GST arrears, Gehlot said.

The veteran Congress leader also asked for special trains to take migrant workers stranded at different places in the country to their homes.

“I urged the Centre to put in place necessary mechanisms to take the migrant workers home. The Centre should run special trains to transport them to their native places.”

On the state being lauded for effectively controlling the disease in Bhilwara, Gehlot said the containment model was successful in the textile town as it is not densely populated and the administration had acted swiftly.

He said the containment strategy in other regions of the state, where a large number of Covid-19 cases have been reported, is taking time due to the dense population.

Bhilwara became a coronavirus hotspot after three doctors and nine nursing staff of a private hospital tested positive.

“We introduced strict containment strategies in hotspot areas. The ‘Bhilwara model’ was adopted in Jaipur, Kota and other hotspot areas of the state. It becomes more difficult to control the spread of a disease in densely populated areas,” he said.

Gehlot cited the example of Jaipur’s Parkota area (Ramganj locality) where the population is higher than Bhilwara. “In this region, many families reside in one house. So we divided the region into 30 clusters and conducted testing… a reason why there are more number of cases there,” the CM explained.

The three-time chief minister and senior Congress leader also urged the Centre to provide quality rapid testing kits and other essential equipment. Many states, he said, are battling the problem of not having enough safety paraphernalia.

“We had got rapid testing kits from the ICMR, but stopped using them after they turned out to be faulty. The state has increased the number of PCR tests,” he said.

The chief minister also said that Rajasthan had received praise for its containment strategy in the recent meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief ministers via video conferencing held on Monday.