The AP government, which had already been facing financial crisis since bifurcation, has been driven into further trouble with the Corona crisis. In the last one year, the state had reportedly taken debts of Rs 1 lakh crore with not any concrete assets to be seen.
However, the YCP government, under the leadership of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, had neither stepped back from implementing various welfare schemes nor announcing ex-gratia and solatium to the needy and the bereaved families.
In the wake of Corona gathering pace, the state government had announced that it would give Rs 2,000 financial help to each of those patients who undergo treatment at the Covid care centres and quarantine centres. This aid was announced keeping in view the expenses the patient had to meet for medicines, stay in the quarantine or Covid care centre and the quality food they had to consume to gain immunity to keep themselves protected from the virus.
For some time, the patients received the help as announced by the CM. From July, the government stopped giving the financial aid for reasons unknown and the fact came to light rather late.
For the last one month, the state, on an average, has been registering 10,000 cases daily, which means the government has to spend Rs 2 crore every day on the financial aid. With the cases failing to show a downward trend, this might prove costly to the state exchequer. When Corona positive cases were recorded in hundreds, the government extended financial aid as announced by Jagan.
Probably, with the cases taking a leap to 10,000 every day, the government could not pump in the funds required for the help.
This financial aid of Rs 2,000 to each Corona patient was given during the months of April, May and June and the government has reportedly spent Rs 20 crore for this purpose exclusively at this time.
Since then, the Corona patients had been hoping that the government would release the aid at least at a later date but there seems to be no end for the delay.
It has been learnt that the government has given information to the district-level officials that they will not be releasing the funds towards Corona care to the positive patients.
