Win a reward of Rs 50 lakh after making your village 'Corona' free - No, it's not a joke. It's a weird contest from Maharashtra's government to beat the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid deploying the measures to curb the spread, the most affected COVID-19 state in India has announced the contest in a bid to encourage the people towards making the rural areas in the state free of the pandemic.
According to reports, the Maharashtra government has on Wednesday announced the 'Corona free' village contest with the aim of having more involvement from the people towards containing the spread of the pandemic in the rural areas. In a statement, Maharashtra Rural Development Minister Hasan Mushrif has said that the 'Corona free village' contest is a part of the initiative announced by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The contest focuses on awarding the village panchayats that are doing good work in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. The reports say that prizes will be given to three village panchayats doing good work in COVID-19 management in each revenue division. The Rural Development Minister said that the first prize will be Rs 50 lakh, the second prize would be Rs 25 lakh, and the third of Rs 15 lakh.
He further said that there are six revenue divisions in the state and there will be a total of 18 prizes (three for each division) and the total prize money is Rs 5.4 crore. The Minister stated that the participating villages will be judged on 22 criteria and a committee will be installed to judge the villages in the contest.
He added that the villages which win the contest will also get an additional amount equivalent to the prize money as encouragement and it will be utilized for development works in those villages. "The aim is to make talukas, districts, and ultimately, the entire state of Maharashtra Corona-free as soon as possible", the minister added. The winning village in each of the six revenue divisions of the state will be conferred with Rs 50 lakh as prize money.
According to reports, during a virtual address on Sunday, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had praised 21-year-old Ruturaj Deshmukh and his task force for making Ghatne village in Solapur district free of COVID-19. The Chief Minister had then announced the initiative of "My Village Corona Free" to strengthen the involvement of every people in curbing the COVID-19 spread in the state.
The first-of-its-kind initiative in the nation has come when Maharashtra has horrendously got impacted by the second wave of the pandemic. The second wave was more severe in India's richest state than in any other state. The state has been reporting a decline in fresh COVID-19 cases and according to the state health department, Maharashtra has reported 14,123 fresh COVID-19 cases, which took the total tally to 57,61,015. So far, the state has reported 96,198 deaths.
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