Coronavirus: Cong asks workers to make food, medicine available to those in need

The Congress on Thursday asked its workers to make food and medicines available to the people facing difficulties amid a countrywide lockdown in view of the coronavirus threat.

The party also urged its MPs to make sincere initiatives and contribute from their MPLAD funds in constituencies to equip hospitals as well as health centres to address the current crisis.

In a letter to all MPs and PCC chiefs, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said PCC presidents and incharges should coordinate with MLAs and MLCs to take identical initiatives in their assemblies and states.

Besides this, the PCCs are requested to issue instructions to the DCCs and block committees to ensure the benefits of the welfare schemes from both central and state governments reach the people in need, he said.

"In this critical time, it is incumbent upon us to ensure the availability of food and medicines to the people who will face difficulties during the lockdown.

"In this regard, all PCCs are requested to take urgent measures to distribute food and medicine kits to the deprived people from state level to the block level on behalf of Indian National Congress," he said.

Venugopal said distribution of food kits should be adhered with the social distance protocols as demanded by the health experts and huge gatherings should be avoided at any cost.

He suggested that a group consisting of party workers and leaders may be formed to coordinate the scheme.

Social media and other online platforms can be employed to coordinate the distribution as well as to identify the people in need.

"In addition to this, to cope with this hard time, the Congress president desires that Congress party lawmakers including Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha MPs should take serious and sincere initiatives to make contributions from their MPLAD funds in the respective constituencies and states to equip the hospitals as well as health centres to address the current crisis of COVID-19 transmission,"he said.

The Congress leader has sought a detailed report of actions taken in this matter from the PCC chiefs.