Namaskar to all of you! First of all, let me introduce people with some new responsibilitiesas it will be better for you also. Shri Mansukh Bhai Mandaviya, who has just become our new Health Minister, Dr. Bharati Pawar ji is also sitting with him as MoS. She is working as MoS in our health department. There are two more people whose involvement with you is going to be regular; they are the new minister of the ministry of DONER, Shri Kishan Reddy ji and MoS sitting with him Shri B.L. Verma ji. This introduction is also necessary for you.

Friends,

You have described in detail how all of you are working hard to deal with Corona in the North East with some innovative ideas and plans, and what you have accomplished. You, the entire country and especially our health workers, have worked tirelessly for the last one-and-a-half years to discharge their respective responsibilities. Despite the geographical challenges of the North East, the way you prepared the infrastructure from testing and treatment to vaccination … though four states have to improve further. But the rest have prevented the wastage (of vials) to a great extent with great sensitivity. You also made maximum utilization of every vial. I congratulate your efforts and especially the people of our medical field who have handled the vaccination with sensitivity using their skills because vaccinesare very important. I congratulate all your colleagues working in the health sector and I am sure that this will be done in a better way even in the four states where there is some slippage.

Friends,

We are all well aware of the present situation. The results of the collective efforts made by different governments together during the second wave of Covidare also visible. But there are some districts of the North East where cases of infection are increasing. We have to understand these signals.We need to be more alert and people will also have to be told to remain alertconstantly. We have to take more strict steps at the micro level to prevent the spread of infection. As Himanta ji was saying that he did not choose the path of lockdown.Instead, he focused on micro containment zones by creating more than 6,000 micro containment zones. This way responsibility can be fixed. We can ask the person in charge of that micro-containment zone how it went wrong or how it went well. Therefore, the more emphasis we put on the micro-containment zones, we will come out of this situation sooner. We will also have to make full use of the experience we have gained in the last one-and-a-half years and the best practices that we have seen. Different states of the country have also chosen innovative methods. There will be some districts, some villages and some officers in your state who would have handled these situations in a very innovative way. We will benefit more if we identify these best practices and publicize them.

Friends,

We also have to keep an eye on each variant of the coronavirus because it is absolutely polymorphic. It changes its form frequently and as a result it poses new challenges and hence we have to keep a very close watch on each variant. Experts are constantly studying about how devastating it will be after the mutation. The entire team is watching every change closely. In such a situation, prevention and treatment is very important. We have to put our entire energy and focus only on these two measures. The severity of the virus will weaken if we continue to maintain a distance of two yards, wear a mask and get vaccinated; and we have seen this from the experience of the last one-and-a-half years. We will be able to save more lives if we continue with our strategy of testing, tracking and treatment, and improve our infrastructure. This has been proved by the experiences in the entire world and, therefore, we have to continuously encourage every citizen to follow the rules made for corona prevention. We will have to make efforts to involve the civil society and heads of religious organizations.

Friends,

It is true that tourism, trade and business have been greatly affected due to Corona. But today I will emphasise that it is a matter of concern that people visiting hill stations and markets are not wearing masks and not following protocol. This is not right. Many times we hear this argument and some people say proudly that we want to enjoy it before the third wave arrives. It is important to explain to the people that the third wave will not come on its own. Sometimes people ask what preparationshave been made for the third wave. What will you do for the third wave? In fact, the question that we should ask ourselves is how to prevent the third wave. How to execute our protocols efficiently? And corona is not something which comes on its own, it is brought by people.  Therefore, if we take equal care of these things, then we will be able to stop the third wave also. What we will do if the third wave comes is a different subject. What is more important is how to stop it. Therefore, our citizens should not compromise on alertness, vigilance and adherence toCovid-appropriate protocols. Experts have been repeatedly warning that there could be a massive jump in corona infections due to carelessness, negligence and overcrowding. Therefore, it is important that all necessary steps are taken at every level seriously. We should try to stop the overcrowded events.

Friends,

The ‘Free Vaccine to all' campaign run by the Central Government has equal importance in the North East. We have to keep accelerating the process of vaccination to combat the third wave. We have to involve people from social, cultural, religious, education and celebrities to dispel the myths regarding vaccination.  It needs to be publicized by them till the last end and have to mobilize people also. As I said in the beginning, that some states in the North-East have done remarkably well as far as vaccination is concerned. There should be more emphasis on vaccination where the risk of spreading corona infection is high.

Friends,

We have to move forward by improving the infrastructure related to testing and treatment. Recently, the cabinet has approved a new package of Rs 23,000 crore in this regard. This package will help every state in the North East to strengthen its health infrastructure. This package will give a big boost to testing, diagnostics and genome sequencing in the North East. It will also help in increasing the ICU bed capacity immediately where cases are rising. In particular, we have to work fast to build infrastructure related to oxygen and pediatric care. Hundreds of new oxygen plants are being installed across the country through PM CARES and I am happy that all the Chief Ministers have expressed great satisfaction for the rapid progress in this regard. About 150 plants have been approved for the North East. I urge all of you that these should be completed as soon as possible and there should not be any hurdles. Keep a watch on this and the skilled manpower should be prepared simultaneously so that you don’t face any problem in future. Considering the geographical location of the North East, it is also very important to build temporary hospitals. There is another important topic as I mentioned in the beginning,and that is trained manpower. Trained manpower is also necessary to run the oxygen plants that are being set up, the ICU wards being built, the new machines that are being delivered to the block level hospitals. The Central Government will provide whatever help you need in this regard.

Friends,

Today we have reached the capacity of conducting more than 20 lakh tests per day across the country. Testing infrastructure will have to be increased on priority in every district of the North East, especially in the severely affected districts. Not only this, along with random testing, we must also take steps regarding aggressive testing in clustered blocks. I am sure that we will definitely be able to keep the corona infection in checkwith our collective efforts and the cooperation of the people of the country. Today we were able to discuss very specific topics of the North East in detail.  I am sure that our entire team will work to stop the little growth that is being seen in the Corona infections in the North East in the coming days and we will get success. Many thanks to all of you once again! I wish you the very best, and hope my North East brothers and sisters are relieved of Corona soon.

DISCLAIMER: This is the approximate translation of PM’s speech. Original speech was delivered in Hindi.

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DS/VK/AK