Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to donate to the national kitty in the fight against coronavirus pandemic, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday approved a proposal for the contribution of one day salary by the employees of Ministry of Defence to the PM-CARES Fund.
It is estimated that around Rs 500 crore will be collectively provided by the Defence Ministry to the fund from various wings, including Army, Navy, Air Force, Defence Public Sector Undertakings(PSU)s and others.
Giving this information here, officials also said the employees’ contribution is voluntary and those desirous of opting out will be exempted. There are more than 13 lakh personnel in the Army, one lakh in the IAF and nearly the same number in the Navy besides civilian employees in the three Service, defence ministry and the PSUs.
Meanwhile, in the ongoing national effort to meet the challenge of the pandemic, the Army on Sunday received a fresh batch of 275 evacuees from Iran at its wellness facility in Jodhpur. As per the procedure, preliminary screening of the evacuees upon arrival was conducted at Jodhpur airport by the medical teams from the civil administration and the Army. Thereafter, they were moved to the Army Wellness Facility. The earlier batch of 277 evacuees, who had arrived at Jodhpur, on March 25, have settled down comfortably and are being regularly monitored by the army medical teams, officials said.
The Army authorities as part of Operation Namaste, codename given to the endeavor to fight the pandemic, have created Army Wellness Facilities which comprises all amenities and are fully geared up to accommodate all the evacuees and provide them with requisite medical and administrative support during their quarantine period.
The armed forces have been working relentlessly to provide medical and logistics support to civil authorities in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic. The Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) has deployed all resources at its disposal to aid the civilian authorities, shouldering responsibility in the time of extraordinary crisis.
Six quarantine facilities run by the Armed Forces are currently operational at Manesar, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Chennai, Hindan and Mumbai.
So far, a total of 1,463 people, including foreigners, evacuated from COVID-19 affected countries have been housed and observed at these centres. Of them, nearly 1,300 are presently under quarantine and being provided proper care. These include evacuees from Iran, Italy, Japan and Malaysia, besides the IAF and medical crew. Three hundred ninety evacuees from China, Japan and IAF evacuation flight crew have been discharged following completion of their mandatory quarantine period.
Three positive COVID-19 cases have been reported, so far – two from Hindan and one from Manesar. They were referred to Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi for further treatment.
In addition to the active quarantine centres, more facilities have been readied and may be made operational within 48-72 hours, if needed. These facilities are at Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Dundigal near Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kanpur, Jaisalmer, Jorhat and Gorakhpur.
Also,28 Service Hospitals have been earmarked as COVID hospitals for managing purely Corona virus cases. This will include Armed Forces as well as civilian patients transferred from state health authorities, in case their capacity is overwhelmed.
As of now, there are five hospitals across Army, Navy and Air Force which can carry out COVID test. These include Army Hospital Research and Referral, Delhi; Command Hospital Air Force, Bangalore and Armed Forces Medical College, Pune; Command Hospital (Central Command) Lucknow; Command Hospital (Northern Command) Udhampur. Six more hospitals are being equipped shortly with the resources to begin testing.