Union Minister Jitendra Singh explores lockdown exit plans with ex-bureaucrats

Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday discussed the country's fight against COVID-19 and lockdown exit plans with former bureaucrats.

In a one-and-half hour long video conference, he briefed the former civil servants about the government's efforts in containing the pandemic in an effective manner so far.

"India has fared well ahead of many advanced countries in the world through pro-active measures to contain it," said Singh, the minister of state for personnel.

The minister held extensive discussions with ex-bureaucrats about India's fight against coronavirus and explored ways for an exit plan post lockdown, according to a Personnel Ministry statement.

In Saturday's discussion with the minister, the officers also appreciated the government's efforts in containing the pandemic through various measures and also shared their views on the possible exit plan post lockdown to kick start the economy, it said.

During the video-interaction, the officers also underlined the issues like, phased withdrawal of lockdown, more usage of technology in administration e.g. e-office, importance of building up immunity through Vitamin-C intake, fiscal stimulus to kickstart the economy, financial security to the poor, introduction of more online courses and exams to utilize the academic year, facilitation of migrant workers to reach their native places and development of vaccines and testing kits indigenously to give a fillip to Make in India concept.

Singh thanked the bureaucrats for their valuable suggestions on the subject and said that such kind of outreach will continue in future to get the distilled wisdom from all quarters to fight the menace of coronaVIRUS pandemic, the statement said.

Former IAS officers Sudhir Bhargava, Rama Sundaram, Rakesh Kumar Gupta, Satyananda Mishra, P Panneervel and K V Eapen, besides ex-IRS officers Sangeeta Gupta and Sheila Sangwan participated in the discussion.

The move assumes significance as many as 101 former bureaucrats had recently written to the chief ministers of states expressing anguish over the "harassment" of Muslims in some parts of the country.

They had termed as "misguided and condemnable" the action of Tablighi Jamaat in organising a meeting here but mentioned the "utterly irresponsible and reprehensible" action of a section of media in fuelling hostility towards the Muslims.