Ever since Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has appealed to the public to contribute to the Chief Minister's Public Relief Fund (CMPRF) to support the government's battle against the COVID-19 pandemic and to enhance the medical infrastructure to address the health crisis, hundreds of people including celebrities and entrepreneurs had donated to the relief fund either by meeting the Chief Minister directly or by online. 

On Tuesday, the state government has revealed that the relief fund has received Rs 353 crore as donations from various groups of people. Chief Minister MK Stalin has on Tuesday sanctioned Rs 100 crore from the CMPRF to augment the health infrastructure and containment measures to tackle the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The allotted fund will be used for procuring medical oxygen to equip the infrastructure facilities.

Several celebrities including actors Rajinikanth, Ajith, Suriya, Karthi, Siva Karthikeyan, Vijay Sethupathi, and Soori had donated the CMPRF to help the government's efforts to tackle the pandemic. An official statement from the Chief Minister's Office has on Tuesday said that the Chief Minister had earlier sanctioned Rs 50 crore from CMPRF towards procuring anti-viral Remdesivir medicines and containers for transporting medical oxygen from other states through railways. 

The Chief Minister had sanctioned another Rs 50 crore to purchase RT-PCR test kits to enhance the COVID-19 testing. He also had sanctioned Rs 41 crore for importing oxygen concentrators and other medical equipment from Singapore and other foreign countries and Rs 25 crore was separately allotted for buying medicines to treat the patients who were infected by the Black Fungus infection.

Earlier in May, after appealing to the public to make donations to the CMPRF, MK Stalin has asserted that transparency will be observed in the utilization of the fund and the donations will be rooted only for the Covid-related treatment. The Chief Minister has said that the people can avail tax exemption for the donations made to the relief fund. The Chief Minister has said that the second wave had put the state's health infrastructure and the people under distress and his government has arranged all its resources for beating the pandemic. 

According to the state health department, Tamil Nadu has recorded 4,512 fresh COVID-19 cases, 6,013 discharges, and 118 deaths on Tuesday. Overall, the state had recorded 24,75,190 cases so far as of Tuesday of which 39,335 are active, 24,03,349 have been discharged, and 32,506 cases had succumbed to the viral infection.