Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said that in this era of Covid-19, the nation is safe and secure in the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is effectively guiding to bail out the country from this crisis.

Addressing a virtual rally of Hamirpur Parliamentary Constituency from Shimla, the Chief Minister said that a virus has forced all of us to address each other virtually and not actually.

“The credit for this goes to the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for envisioning ‘Digital India’. Digital India has helped us to interact with the field officers and elected representatives of PRIS in this testing time of Covid-19,” he said.

The CM said that the State BJP has been the front runner organization of the country to hold maximum virtual rallies. He said that over 22 lakh masks were distributed among the needy besides contributing about Rs. 1.93 crore towards the PM CARES by the state BJP.

He said that the people of the country are fortunate that during this testing time a strong leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was leading us. It was due to the timely steps taken by the Prime Minister that the death rate in the country due to Covid-19 was very low as compared to all the developed countries.

Thakur said that the decision of timely lockdown by the Prime Minister helped in checking the spread of this virus, besides providing time to create required infrastructure to check the virus. He said that without these steps the situation of the country would have been alarming. He said that fifteen most developed countries of the world has reported about five lakh deaths due to Covid-19, but in India this number was about 15,000.

Thakur said that due to the timely decisions taken by the state government at one stage, Himachal Pradesh is about to become Covid-19 free state, but due to arrival of about two lakh people of the state stranded in different parts of the country, this number today has crossed the 800 mark. He said that but at the same time it was the moral duty of the state government to bring back our people stranded in other states.

The CM said that the people of the S state need not worry as all the people coming from other states were being kept under quarantine and after proper tests they were being allowed to go home. He urged the people for providing their whole hearted support to the state government during this Covid-19 pandemic.

The Chief Minister thanked the Union government and Prime Minister for starting various Central schemes. He said that 1.36 lakh women of the State had been provided free gas connections under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna besides giving three free gas cylinders facility during Covid-19 pandemic. He said that 1,11,863 beneficiaries had been benefited under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana by giving them two installments of Rs. 500.

Thakur said that the central government had also transferred Rs. 500 each for three months from April to June, 2020 into the accounts of 5.90 lakh women under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna. He said that the state government had also launched ‘One Nation –One Ration Card Scheme to facilitate the people of the State. He said that the Central Government had also increased the daily wage of MNREGA workers by Rs 20 per day.