Make your village 'corona free', win Rs 50 lakh: Maharashtra

Taking the initiative of “Corona-mukt gaon” further, the Maharashtra government on Wednesday announced awards for unique initiatives — a first-of-its-kind move in India.

The competition shall be held in all the 6 revenue divisions of the state — Konkan, Western Maharashtra, North Maharashtra, Marathwada, Nagpur and Amravati with top 3 prizes for each division being Rs 50 lakhs, Rs 25 lakhs and Rs 15 lakhs. These will be given to villages coming out with flying colours in controlling Covid-19.

It may be recalled that Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced the ‘Corona-mukt gaon’ mission.

After a series of meetings, the state’s Rural Development Minister Hasan Mushrif announced the scheme. “We shall be giving away a total of 18 first, second, and third prizes in each division and the amount would be Rs 5.40 crore. This amount will be spent by the winner villages for carrying out various development works in the villages in their vicinity,” Mushrif said in a press statement.

In Maharashtra, five villages in the state have declared themselves as Covid-19 free with zero cases for a fortnight to a month’s time and have sped up the vaccination drive.

These villages are Hiware Bazar and Bhoyare Khurd, both in Ahmednagar district, Antroli and Ghatane in Solapur district and Bhosi in Nanded.

The villages shall be judged on the basis of 22 different criteria by a special committee of experts, the details of which will be announced shortly.

“The government appeals to all villages to participate in the competition to make their hamlets ‘Covid-free’,” he said, adding that such an initiative would ensure that the villages, taluks, districts and the state become pandemic-free.

“Let's work on ‘Corona-mukt gaon’…this will help in making the taluks and districts Covid-19 free,” Thackeray had said in his Sunday webcast to the people of the state.

Prizes will be given to three village panchayats doing good work in Covid-19 management in each revenue division.

The first prize winner will get Rs 50 lakh, second Rs 25 lakh and third Rs 15 lakh, the minister said.

There are six revenue divisions in the state, hence there will be a total of 18 prizes. The total prize money is Rs 5.4 crore, he said.

The villages which win the contest will also get an additional amount equivalent to the prize money as encouragement, and it will be utilised for development works in those villages, the minister said.

The participating villages will be judged on 22 criteria, he said, adding that a committee will be set up to judge the villages.

Thackeray in a virtual address on Sunday lauded Ruturaj Deshmukh (21), the youngest sarpanch in Maharashtra, and his task force to keep their Ghatne village in Solapur district free of coronavirus.

On Tuesday, Maharashtra recorded 14,123 new Covid-19 cases, taking the infection tally to 57,61,015, while 477 fresh deaths and another 377 deaths previously unreported pushed the fatality count to 96,198, as per official data.