Rs 200cr of Covid Care Fund used on med tools & drugs

Lucknow: The government has received Rs 412 crore in the Covid Care Fund till now of which Rs 344 crore has already been spent. This includes Rs 200 crore on medical equipment and medicines and Rs 153 on migrant workers.

After CM Yogi Adityanath reviewed the fund on Thursday, additional chief secretary, home, Awanish Awasthi said that of Rs 200 crore spent on medicines and equipment, Rs 33.52 crore has been approved for 100 thermal scanners, 13,000 infrared thermometers, 3,84,080 N-95 masks and 3,63,280 PPE kits.

He said that more than Rs 31.42 crore had been approved for increasing testing in KGMU, SGPGI, and BRD medical college, Gorakhpur, while Rs 15.73 crore had been cleared for purchasing 121 ventilators for 21 medical colleges. “Rs 6.14 crore has been approved for nucleic acid extraction system in six state medical colleges and five hospitals, including KGMU, SGPGI and RML in Lucknow, GIMS in Greater Noida, AIIMS in Etawah, Kanpur Medical College, Agra Medical College, Prayagraj Medical College Meerut Medical College and Jhansi Medical College. Another Rs 6.14 crore has been spent on their establishment,” Awasthi said.

He added that Rs 13.5 crore had been approved for improvement of BSL-2 and BSL-3 labs in AIIMS Greater Noida, Super Specialty Children's Hospital in Noida andShahjahanpur Medical College, while Rs 19.40 crore has been cleared for establishment of BSL-2 labs in district hospitals in Moradabad, Bareilly, VIndhyachal and Gonda,Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospitals in Varanasi and Aligarh and state medical colleges in Jalaun, Ambedkarnagar, Saharanpur, Banda, Badaun, Azamgarh, and government medical colleges in Ayodhya, Firozabad, Basti and Bahraich.

The government has spent Rs 4.10 crore for 14 ultrasound machines, Rs 34.90 crore for 10 hemodialysis machines, RO systems and Rs 5.55 crore for digital x-ray machines in 11 colleges. Another Rs 4.43 crore has been spent on Truenat testing machines.