A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, headed by veteran Congress MP Anand Sharma, has urged the Centre to increase investment in public health to face future pandemic challenges. The panel also mooted ways to help migrant workers and improve the Public Distribution System.
The panel observed that the sudden imposition of lockdown following the Covid-19 outbreak resulted in an unprecedented disruption. “The lockdown led to the stoppage of intra-State and inter-State movement of people, goods, shutdown of factories, hotels, eateries, tourism and other economic activities that led to unprecedented disruption and severe social and economic fallouts. The migrant labourers, factory workers, daily wage earners were the worst affected. The civil administration in the States and the districts prepared to respond to the challenge and establish shelters and quarantine facilities. As there was no timely dissemination of the information in the district areas about the arrangements being made for food, shelter and other facilities, anxiety and uncertainty gripped the migrant labourers and workers and led to their movement in large number to their home States. This stopped only when effective mitigating measures were taken by Central and the State Governments.”
National plan needed
The panel asked the Centre to draw up a national plan and guidelines under NDMA, 2005 and Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897. “An effective functional institutional mechanism is needed for co-ordination between the Centre, States and Union Territories for quick response to such a crisis in future.,” it said.
The panel said the public sector healthcare delivery system needs to be further strengthened in all the States/ UTs and a uniform healthcare system should be established across the country to deal with the pandemic on a sustained basis in future.
Lockdown resulted in huge loss of jobs and daily income in both organised and unorganised sectors. “The impact, however, has been more severe in the unorganised sector. Therefore, it will take quite some time to mend and regain the pre-Covid 19 momentum. The GDP after having a contraction of 23.9 per cent in Q1 (2020-21) has shown signs of recovery in Q2 (2020-21). This is due to growth in private consumption during the festival season, rise in investment demand and Government intervention through MNREGA. But, more interventions and schemes are required to support the recovery and to sustain this economic revival in the following quarters,” it said.