A day after announcing a financial package of Rs 5,476 crore for people of various sectors impacted by Covid-19 restrictions, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting that the pandemic be treated as a natural calamity and State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) be used to provide individual benefits to the affected.
Thackeray, while addressing the state on Tuesday, had said that for earthquake, heavy rainfall and flood, natural calamity is announced and individual benefits are given to the people affected.
“We all have accepted this (pandemic) as a natural calamity. So, we are requesting the PM to give individual benefits that are given in natural calamities to the people whose livelihood has been impacted by the pandemic,” he had added.
Confirming that Thackeray has written to the PM, Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte said: “Though the pandemic is a calamity, it is yet to be defined as a natural calamity. So, individual benefits cannot be given as per the existing system.”
He added that treating the pandemic as a natural calamity is a policy decision to be taken at the national level and the Centre has to take a call on it.
Surjitt Sahani
