PM Modi to interact with 100 worst-hit districts' magistrates on May 18 and 20

Going micro on the Covid-19 management as the Centre faces flak for it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold interactions with district magistrates of 100 districts with high caseloads on May 18 and 20.

Many District Magistrates from Karnataka, the second-worst hit state in the country in terms of new cases after Maharashtra, will attend the meeting.

Bengaluru Urban is among the top ten districts with high Covid caseload while six are from Maharashtra including Mumbai, Thane, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Nashik. The other two are Raipur and Durg from Chhattisgarh.

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In the first meeting, the DMs of 46 districts from nine states will participate and the remaining 54 districts from 10 states will take part on May 20. Chief Ministers of the concerned states will also attend the meetings.

The PM's last meeting with all Chief Ministers on April 23 ran into a row as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal went public with the live telecast of the meeting. Modi had then changed track and held one-on-one interactions with Chief Ministers of 15 states and LGs of two UTs last week.

This is the first time that he will directly interact with the top district-level administrative officers and it comes at a time when the deadly disease has hit rural India in a big way. DMs have a key role in health management especially in tier II and III cities, which neither have a central government-owned hospital nor top private hospitals. Earlier Centre had asked states to activate panchayats to provide necessary institutional village-level support catering to their respective locations and wherever possible, improvise households as home quarantine locations.

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Continuing with his attack, Rahul Gandhi mocked the Prime Minister, saying he was missing "along with vaccines, oxygen and medicines during the pandemic" and slammed him for remaining focussed on Central Vista". Congress launched a hashtag on Twitter #ModiShahGayabHai and said, "the judiciary is stepping in to do what the Modi govt should have done months ago, but what's worse: the Modi govt is trying all it can to evade judicial review. Neither will BJP step up to pull India out of this crisis nor will they let others help!"

Gandhi further said when a country faces a crisis, the government should ask itself if it is taking from the people or giving to them, if it is helpful or harmful.

"But the GoI has abdicated its duty so people must come together for those in need. India stands united," he tweeted.

While initial signs of plateauing have been reported from 18 states including Delhi, Maharashtra and Gujarat, there is a clear surge in states including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The trend is also catching up in eastern states including West Bengal.

The Health Ministry's updated data on Thursday said just ten states — Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan accounted for over 72 per cent of new Covid-19 cases.