In order to curb the novel coronavirus cases in the state, the Maharashtra government has announced a ‘corona-free village’ contest. Villages that do not have a single active COVID-19 patient will be rewarded.
Three village panchayats doing good work in the COVID management, in each revenue division of the state, will be rewarded. The first prize is Rs 50 lakh, the second prize is Rs 25 lakh and the third is Rs 15 lakh. In a media report, Hasan Mushrif, State Rural Development Minister explained there were six revenue divisions in the state and a total of 18 prizes. The total prize money for this initiative is pegged at Rs 5.4 crore.
A similar initiative ‘mera gaon, corona mukt gaon’ was launched by the Uttar Pradesh government on May 21. The state government announced villages that declare themselves COVID-free will be rewarded. The participating villages will be judged on 22 criteria, he said, adding that a committee will be set up to judge the villages.
A week later on May 27, the Chhattisgarh government declared nearly 10,000 of its total 20,000 villages in the state as COVID-free. Uddhav Thackeray in a virtual address on Sunday lauded Ruturaj Deshmukh (21), Maharashtra’s youngest sarpanch, and his task force for ensuring their Ghatne village in Solapur district has no Covid cases.
On Tuesday, Maharashtra recorded 14,123 new COVID-19 cases, taking the infection tally to 57,61,015, while 477 fresh deaths and another 377 deaths previously unreported pushed the fatality count to 96,198, official data showed.
