The Central Government is all set to allocate Rs 3,000 crore from the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES) Fund for supply of ventilators and for the welfare of migrant labourers.
Allocation towards supply of ventilators: Rs 2000 cr
Centre will spent Rs 2,000 crore in the procurement of 50,000 Made-in-India ventilators to Government-run Covid hospitals in all States/Union Territories (UTs).
- Of the 50,000 ventilators, 30,000 are being manufactured by Bharat Electronics Ltd. The remaining 20,000 ventilators are being manufactured by AgVa Healthcare (10,000), AMTZ Basic (5,650), AMTZ High End (4,000) and Allied Medical (350).
- The prominent recipients include Maharashtra (275), Delhi (275), Gujarat (175), Bihar (100), Karnataka (90) and Rajasthan (75). By June-end, an additional 14,000 ventilators will be delivered to all States/UTs.
Allocation towards Migrants support: Rs 1000 cr
On the other hand, Rs 1,000 crore has already been released to States/UTs for the welfare of migrant labourers. The distribution of the fund is based on the formula of 50% weightage for the population as per 2011 census, 40% weightage for number of positive Covid-19 cases and 10% for equal distribution among all the States/UTs.
- This assistance is to be used for arranging accommodation, food, medical treatment and transportation of the migrants.
- The main recipients of the grant are Maharashtra (Rs181 crore), Uttar Pradesh (Rs103 crore), Tamil Nadu (Rs 83 crore), Gujarat (Rs 66 crore), Delhi (Rs 55 crore), West Bengal (Rs 53 crore), Bihar (Rs 51 crore), Madhya Pradesh (RS 50 crore), Rajasthan (Rs 50 crore) and Karnataka (Rs 34 crore).
About PM-CARES:
In March 2020, the Centre set up the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM-CARES) as a public charitable trust with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like COVID-19 and to provide relief to the affected.
- This public charitable trust has PM Narendra Modi as the chairman and defence minister (Rajnath Singh), home minister (Amit Shah) and the finance minister (Nirmala Sitharaman) as its members.
