PM to interact with CMs on Monday

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 22

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold another round of consultation with Chief Ministers on the Covid scenario in the country on Monday.

In another outreach ahead of it, he will interact with gram panchayats across the country on April 24, which is celebrated annually as National Panchayati Raj Day. He will also launch unified e-Gram Swaraj Portal and Mobile App to provide gram panchayats a single interface to prepare and implement their development plan.

Lockdown 2.0, which came into force on April 15, is scheduled to end on May 3 and the Prime Minister is expected to take the assessment of the current state of the pandemic. The exercise, his fourth with the Chief Ministers since the Janata Curfew of March 22, would come a week after the government permitted partial lifting of lockdown in districts outside the hotspot zones.

For the past two days, the Centre and states have been monitoring the movement of people, especially labour, who have been allowed to move within the state boundaries while following social distancing norms.

States will have some 100 hours till Monday to strategise the way forward. Telengana has already extended the lockdown till May 7.

Meanwhile, Bill Gates has written to PM Modi, commending his leadership and proactive measures taken to flatten the Covid curve and expanding focus on testing, identifying hotspots, strengthening the health system and promoting research and development.