Panchayats Minister Mauvin Godinho has urged Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant to provide compensation to families of all single COVID-victims for which, Rs 100 crore of the Rs 300 crore grant from the Centre should be utilised.
Godinho recalled that he was part of the meeting chaired by the Union Finance Minister as the GST council member, where he had presented the proposal of the Centre giving Goa a grant of Rs 100 crore to commemorate Goa’s 60th year of liberation.
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He said at that time, the State was pleasantly surprised to get Rs 200 crore more than anticipated and that now, given the prevailing pandemic, the State should devote Rs 100 crore to see that adequate relief is provided to the affected families.
He added that he had spoken to the CM about this and that he is positive that the cabinet would take this decision.
He also said that the ongoing ‘strategic’ curfew had worked in breaking the chain and spread of infection and said a complete lockdown would have created problems for people’s livelihood.
Godinho also hit back at criticism from the opposition and said the world had not seen such a crisis and yet there was no one making suggestions but only finding faults.
He said the unprecedented pandemic had led to systems collapsing at first but the government has now put everything in place.
