Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday everyone living in the national capital will be taken care of by his government after his counterparts in West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand raised concerns about migrants stranded in other states amid the countrywide lockdown.
Kejriwal mentioned West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Jharkhand’s Hemant Soren as he held a press conference to talk about his government’s readiness and the new measures to be taken in the fight against coronavirus disease.
Mamata Banerjee had written to 18 chief ministers, including Kejriwal, urging them to provide basic shelter, food and medicine to migrant workers from her state.
“I have been noticing messages on social media by Jharkhand’s chief minister Hemant Soren in the past few days and Mamata Didi as well asking us to take care of people from their state. Even those from Bihar and UP,” he said.
“I want to tell all of them that each and every person living inside Delhi’s boundaries will be taken care of. They are our responsibility and our people. They might belong to Jharkhand, Bihar, UP, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, or any other place but they belong to Delhi now. They should not worry about them at all,” Kejriwal said.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader also gave the fresh number of people who have contracted Covid-19 disease, saying there were 36 cases until Thursday but that they have gone up to 39 on Friday.
Twenty-nine people, he said, had come back from other countries and 10 contracted the coronavirus infection from them indicating transmission at a local level.
“The situation is under control as now. There are three to four cases reported on a daily basis and there were days when we did not have a single one. But compared to other countries, like the US and UK, the situation is better and we will be able to handle if it worsens,” he said.
Kejriwal said his administration has made a SOPs on what needs to be done if the number of cases in the national capital goes beyond 100 cases in a day.
“We are prepared to deal with 100 new cases of corona every day now and are preparing to deal with 500 to 1000 new cases every day if the situation escalates… Hundreds of hospitals are being readied with ambulance, ventilators and medical staff,” the chief minister said.
Kejriwal also talked about the night centres where the poor and destitute are being given food every day and said the facilities will be extended to cater to more such people.
“We have made arrangements to provide lunch and dinner in 325 schools from today. Around 500 people will be provided with food in all these schools. So far we were providing food to 20,000 people daily and the number will now increase to around 2,00,000 from today,” he said.
“The number will be doubled from tomorrow and we will be providing food to 400,000 people daily. We’re distributing the centres across Delhi so that people do not have to travel far,” he said.
“We will ensure no one sleeps hungry.”
At the same time, he reiterated the need to maintain social distance at these centres and said if the rule is not followed the purpose of the 21-day lockdown to the stop spread of coronavirus will be defeated.
More than 700 people in India have contracted Covid-19, according to data released by the Union ministry of health on Friday, as the country entered the third day of the three-week nationwide lockdown to clamp the spread of the coronavirus disease.
The health ministry said 724 people have Covid-19 and out of which 66 patients have been cured of the respiratory illness, 17 have died and one person left the country before being diagnosed.
