Pondy CM questions GST on medical equipment to treat coronavirus

Territorial Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Sunday questioned the imposition of GST by the Centre on medical equipment for hospitals to treat COVID- 19 patients.

He told newsmen here that the Centre should help the rescue of the states and facilitate the availability of the equipment like ventilators, monitors, face masks and drugs and medicines at the government hospitals.

The state governments could in the alternative be permitted to buy the equipment either from within the country or outside the country, he said. But the imposition of GST (goods and services tax) on the devices pushed the prices up and hence the GST should be rescinded to make the devices available to the states, he said.

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The Chief Minister appealed to the Centre to make a sufficient number of equipment available for the doctors and nurses taking care of the coronavirus patients. The Centre should supply an adequate number of Personal Protection Equipment, masks and other facilities for the doctors and nurses attending to the infected patients, he said.

Stating that everyone is presently at a crucial and testing time in battling the virus, the Chief Minister said the people should continue to adhere to the social distancing and voluntary isolation at their homes. The lockdown has been extended till May 3, hence there should be strict adherence to the norms of lockdown lest all the achievements made so far here would go for a toss, he said. Thanking the police for their work braving the hot spell and other hardships, the Chief Minister said the joint efforts of staff and workers of Health Department, PWD, Electricity, Civil Supplies, the volunteers of NCC and ASHA unit had been effective in enforcing the lockdown. He said the doctors and nurses taking care of the patients admitted at the Indira Gandhi Government Medical College hospital for treatment for COVID-19 had also been rendering their service excellently.

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There were only three active cases of COVID-19 in the hospital while as many as 3,045 people were in-home quarantine in the Union Territory. Narayanasamy appealed to industries' owners to adhere to the conditions stipulated for resuming work in their units from Monday and no work from outside should be brought into Puducherry. "Only the locals and the migrant workers who were already available within the factories should be engaged to restart the units," he said adding that any violation would lead to cancellation of licences for the entrepreneurs.

District Collector T Arun said the vigil was being maintained on the adherence to the conditions on which permissions were granted to entrepreneurs to run the factories in the wake of relaxation of restrictions as per the latest guidelines of the Central government. He said the Centre had permitted activities under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act after the restrictions were relaxed and hence around 10,000 workers would be benefitted by getting a job during the ongoing lockdown. The Industries and Labour departments would also keep a vigil on the industries to ascertain they did not violate the lockdown norms, he said. Senior Superintendent of Police Rahul Alwal said strict criminal action had been taken against owners of liquor shops after it was found that there was the illegal sale of the brew here during the ongoing lockdown.

"Twentytwo licences had been suspended and this will culminate in cancellation of the licences as the probe was on into the violation of the lockdown norms," he said. The police official said cases were registered against the owners of the shops under the provisions of the Disaster Management Act. "There is no compromise on curbing the menace of illegal sale of liquor in the Union Territory," he added.