Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur while addressing the BJP office bearers and other party workers of Mandi district through video conferencing from Shimla today said that all the workers should strictly adhere to the guidelines issued by the Centre and State government regarding preventive measures to be taken to check spread of Coronavirus.Chief Minister urged the party functionaries to educate the general public regarding preventive steps and also educate them regarding various initiatives taken by the State Government for checking spread of this pandemic. He also asked the Party workers to generously donate towards the PM CARES and Covid Fund for helping the people during this pandemic. He said that the workers should also motivate others to donate generously towards these funds.Chief Minister said that the State Government has made adequate arrangements for proper institutional quarantine of people coming from the red zones of the country to ensure their proper isolation. He said that 3627 people have been kept under institutional quarantine and provided them all possible facilities including time to time medical checkup. He said that in addition to this, 89,293 people have been kept under the home quarantine.Jai Ram Thakur said that it was the responsibility of each and every party worker to ensure that the people kept under home quarantine does not jump it. He said that the family members of the person coming from other parts of the country to their native places must be educated regarding importance of home quarantine and social distancing. He said that the workers must also ensure that anyone who repeatedly jumps home quarantine, the matter should be brought into notice of the district administration and such person would be shifted to institutional quarantine.Chief Minister said that people should also be educated regarding the social stigma linked with this disease. He said that this disease was nothing more than a virus. He said that the only thing required was to maintain social distancing. He also urged the workers to come forward to provide food and shelter to the migrant labourers stranded in the State.
Jai Ram Thakur said that it was due to the far sighted leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and timely decisions taken by him that today the situation of the country was far better than most of the developed countries. He said that the situation in Himachal Pradesh was also better that most of the neighbouring States. He said that there was only one COVID positive person in the State on 2nd of May, but after that the number increased to 31 active cases. He said that this was due to arrival of about 1.15 lakh people of the State stranded in different parts of the country.Jai Ram Thakur also urged the Party workers to download Aarogya Setu app as this would go a long way in providing them all relevant information regarding COVID-19. He said that Aarogya Setu was a COVID-19 contact tracing app developed by the Ministry of Electronics and IT to detect and track the user’s movement with the help of GPS and Bluetooth sensors. He said that till date 11,48,387 people of the State has downloaded this App on their mobile.He also advised the party workers to use various social platforms to counter the false propaganda being spread by the Congress leaders. He said that the opposition was misleading the people on different issues. He said that an important decision has been taken by the State Government for identification of the 'Priority Household', the revised income limit would be Rs. 45000, which would cover 1,50,000 additional families of the state under Food Security Act and they would be provided with food items at subsidized rates. He said that 6,78,338 families of the state are covered under the National Food Security Act with a total population of 27,84,717 whereas the target of National Food Security Act for the state is 36,81,586. He said that as a result of this decision, now these families can avail wheat flour at Rs 3.30 per kg and rice at Rs. 2 per kilogram. He said that on this, there would be an additional expenditure of Rs 10 crore per year. Chief Minister said that the party workers should also come forward to prepare and distribute face masks and face covers to the people. He said that it was not necessary to use surgical mask or any branded mask but the homemade cloth mask was sufficient to check spread of the disease. He said that the people should also be sensitised regarding this disease and should be asked not to spread any kind of rumours.Member of Parliament Ram Swaroop Sharma welcomed the Chief Minister in the video conference. He said that each and every party worker must actively fight the false propaganda being spread by the opposition. He said that people must be educated about the policies and programmes of the Centre and State Government.MLAs Rakesh Jamwal, Jawahar Thakur and Inder Singh Gandhi, District BJP President Ranveer Singh, District BJP General Secretary Priyanta Sharma and other leaders attended the video conference.