Share
Dimapur, March 29 (EMN): While acknowledging the selfless effort rendered by the healthcare community and the police personnel towards preventing the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) in the state, Naga People’s Front (NPF) has questioned the preparedness of the state government and the theory of salary deduction from the public servants.
NPF’s statement issued by its press bureau, while lauding the initiative of setting up the CM Relief Fund thereby providing avenue to people from all walks of life to contribute towards the welfare of the society, has however stated that donations should be voluntary and nobody should be coerced into contributing to the fund saying it tantamount to extortion.
The NPF was 'appalled' by the decision of the PDA government to deduct one-day wages from the employees of certain departments especially from the police personnel, which the party was of the strong view that police personnel should come within the parameter of ‘frontline workers’ to combat the dreaded global pandemic.
“Even though entire state is under total lockdown, the assignments and duties of the police personnel has in no way lessen and therefore their welfare has to be taken into consideration,” NPF stated. NPF felt that special incentives to the sanitation workers, doctors and nurses and any other individuals or agencies, who are engage in combating the dreaded global pandemic in Nagaland, should be awarded by the government of the day rather than deducting their salaries.
The party also expressed concern over the reported shortage of some essential commodities including rice in many districts of the state. It expressed dismay to note that the PDA government was asking the common people to deposit three months in advance to get their share of rice.
“This kind of policy and approach on the part of the PDA government is very shallow and unthinkable when people are going through a very rough weather owing to complete lockdown,” it wondered. On the contrary, NPF has suggested the state government to use the INR 17 crore, which was recently withdrawn from the VDB matching grant fund for essential commodities and later on reimburse from the relief funding on Covid-19 from the central government.
The party also urged the government of the day to utilise various government revenues including revenue from Goods and Services Tax (GST), which tunes to crores of rupees at this critical juncture instead of begging from the poor public and showing helplessness on the pretext of paucity of fund.
It urged the government of the day to be more transparent in tackling Covid-19 as it felt that the lives of its citizens cannot be put at risk due to negligence of the government.