District admin allocates Rs 27.69 cr from DMF funds for COVID-19 fight
12 Apr 2020 09:21:17
Staff Reporter :
In response to Bawankule’s demand, the administration has issued a statement on Saturday in which it mentioned that it had given nod to proposals for allocation of funds to GMCH and IGGMCH
The district administration has allocated total Rs 27.69 crore from District Mineral Foundation (DMF) funds for COVID-19 fight. The said amount has been sanctioned to Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH), and also for provision of essential commodities to stranded workers and slum-dwellers. Chandrashekhar Bawankule, former Guardian Minister of district, had accused the State Government of not utilising District Mineral Foundation (DMF) funds for providing foodgrains to needy during lockdown in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak.
He had stated in a press release that Central Government had allowed the State Governments to utilise DMF funds for measures in connection with COVID-19 pandemic. However, he had alleged, no district in Maharashtra has utilised DMF funds so far. In Nagpur district alone, he alleged, DMF had Rs 118 crore unutilised.
“This fund should be put to better use by providing foodgrains to poor and needy persons at the earliest,” he demanded. In response to Bawankule’s demand, the district administration issued a statement on Saturday in which it mentioned that it had given nod to proposals for allocation of Rs 27.69 crore including Rs 13.18 crore to GMCH, Rs 14.51 crore to IGGMCH, and Rs 5 crore for provision of essential commodities to stranded workers and slum-dwellers. According to the district administration, DMF for Nagpur district had Rs 155.78 crore with it in March 2020. From this, some allocation has been done already. The district administration stated that the allocation to GMCH included Rs 13 crore for setting up 400-bed isolation ward and 200-bed intensive care unit (ICU) and procurement of equipment and medicines.
Besides, allocation of Rs 17.99 lakh was granted to GMCH for pprocurement of viral RNA purification kit and Pathodetect (TM) COVID-19 qualitative RT-PCR kit. Similarly, the IGGMCH allocation included Rs 12 crore for setting up 600-bed isolation ward including 160-bed ICU and 440-bed high-dependency unit, and procurement of equipment and medicines required for the same. Besides, Rs 1.80 crore was allocated to IGGMCH for procurement of central oxygen and suction pipeline for ICU section system (160-bed). Further, an amount of Rs 67.20 lakh was allocated to IGGMCH for procurement of Pathodetect (TM) COVID-19 qualitative RT-PCR kit without extraction.
On Saturday, the district administration also gave its nod to allocation of Rs 3.80 lakh for procurement of viral RNA kit. As far as the stranded migrant workers, unorganised sector workers, homeless persons, slum-dwellers, and poor and needy persons lacking ration cards, etc are concerned, the district administration has decided to allocate Rs 5 crore for provision of foodgrains, grocery items, vegetables, etc, to them. All the allocation has been done from DMF funds, stated the district administration.