Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : The 13thmeeting of the high level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 was held at Nirman Bhawan here on April 25, 2020, under the chairpersonship of Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Health & Family Welfare Minister.
Hardeep S Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation, Dr S. Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister, Nityananda Rai, Minister of State for Home, Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State for Shipping & Chemical and Fertilisers, and Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State, Health & Family Welfare, were present, along with Bipin Rawat, Chief of Defence Staff. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, and Chairperson of the Empowered Group-6, C K Mishra (Environment, Forest & Climate Change) and Chairperson of Empowered Group-2, Dr Arun K Panda, Secretary (MSME) and Chairperson of the Empowered Group-4, and P D Vaghela, Chairperson, Empowered Group-3 were also present.
A detailed presentation on the status of COVID-19 in the country along with the response and management of the disease in the country were made before the GoM. The Group of Ministers (GoM) had detailed deliberation on the measures taken as on date by the Centre and various States/UTs for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19.
The GoM was informed that all districts have been asked to follow and further strengthen their contingency plans to combat COVID-19 and it briefed on the state-wise details of dedicated COVID-19 hospitals along with the adequacy of isolation beds/wards, PPEs, N95 masks, drugs, ventilators, oxygen cylinders etc. The GoM was informed that domestic manufactures ,which had been identified earlier, have already started the production of PPEs, masks etc., and adequate quantity of the same is available.
As on date, more than 1 lakh PPEs and N95 masks are being manufactured everyday in the country. There are at present 104 domestic manufactures of PPE and three making N95 masks in the country. In addition, production of ventilators vide domestic manufacturers has also started and orders have been placed for more than 59,000 units through nine manufacturers.
GoM also reviewed the testing strategy and availability of testing kits across the country along with the strategy for hotspots and cluster management. It was briefed about the number of public and private labs presently testing for COVID-19 along with the number of tests that are being conducted every day through this network of labs.
GoM deliberated on various tasks assigned to various empowered committees and presentations were made by Amitabh Kant, Dr. Arun Kumar Panda, and Pradeep Kharola. GoM was apprised that around 92,000 NGOs, SHGs and civil society organisations are working and contributing by providing food to the migrant workers across various States/UTs. These NGOs are supported by the States by allotting fund from SDRF funds and by FCI which is providing the foodgrains at subsidized cost.
GoM was also informed that a national level meta-data of health workers, NSS, NYK, NCC, doctors etc., has been prepared and shared with all the States, Districts and other officials, to mobilise the resources/volunteers (COVID warriors) to much needed locations. There is at present data for more than 1.24 crore human resources on the dashboard and it is continuously being updated with addition of new groups and sub groups as per specialisation.
The dashboard contains State and District wise information about the number of human resources available from each group, along with the contact details of respective State and District Nodal officers. This database is available at https://covidwarriors.gov.in/default.aspx and is also linked with https://diksha.gov.in/igot/ portal for capacity building purpose. These COVID warriors are being trained through online platforms such as MoHFW website and the iGOT training portal. The platform has 14 courses with 53 modules with includes 113 videos and 29 documents. As on date, more than 10 lakh personnel have been trained, according to a PIB release.